Jack Spicer Wants to Take Over the World
by Dr. Patience's Secretary
Summary: All Jack wants to take over the world! Not Ice Land, not Fiji THE WHOLE WORLD! Now, he's looking for an alternative to the everfailing ShenGong Wu to do it. He's back to the Robots and all hilarious heck is about to break loose!
1. Part One: Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius

1. Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius

In the metal shadows of his basement lair, Jack Spicer slammed his fists down in frustration.

"This is taking way too long!" he snarled. "It's been almost four years now, and I'm actually _further _from conquering the world than I was when I began! I got so caught up looking for Shen Gong Wu that I almost lost sight of my vision…Stupid Wuya! She just _had_ to go and distract me from my visions of world conquest. Ha! As though she was going to share the spoils! I can't wait to see the look on her ugly, fifteen-hundred-year-old face when _I'm_ the head honcho! She had her twelve minutes of fame!" Jack paused for a moment and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Or, is it 'fifteen minutes' of fame? I can use the number fifteen twice in one monologue…"

One of his black and rusted-gold Bots approached him tentatively from the shadows.

"Excuse me, Sir," it began in its computerized voice, "but who are you talking to?"

Irritated, Jack leaned his weight on the hefty table, which encased a large map of the world.

"It's called an _evil rant_," he replied snidely. "Didn't you get the memo _not_ to interrupt me during my rants? Seriously."

"Sorry, Sir," replied the JackBot. "There's someone on the phone for you from a Dr. Patience's office."

"Why didn't you just say so in the first place?" Jack demanded. He ran from the lit map-table to snatch up the phone that his JackBot had failed to bring to him.

Jack Spicer, a young man closing in on the end of his teens, was an unusual sight. Due to what was likely Irish heritage, he had very pale skin- in stark contrast to his black clothing- and very red hair and eyes. Though, the hair was suspect because his eyebrows were black. Physically, he was not far removed from being a limp noodle. However, what he lacked in physical prowess he made up for with his remarkable sense of technological savvy. Jack was a classic example of someone who was wanting in most forms of common sense, but could build a working time machine smaller than an SUV.

"Doctor Patience?" he began when he picked up the phone. "This is Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius."

"Please, just call me Patience," the tired voice responded.

"Uh, all right. Listen, I've heard that you're in the business of 'fixing problems,' aren't you?" He was hesitant to immediately plunge into words like 'evil' and 'conquest' just incase this person was _not_ actually a villain mastermind.

There was a pause.

"Hmm. Jack Spicer. You've been trying to take over the world for quite some time now, haven't you?"

Jack raised one eyebrow in surprise.

"How do you know that?"

"I'm looking at your on-line profile right now. I see you also live in California and you're interested in poetry. That's an interesting combination."

"What? I do not! I _am _not! I live in China and poetry is for wimps!"

"Hmm," Patience muttered. "Must be another Jack Spicer…"

Jack gave a short, startled look of impatience and put his free hand on his hip.

"_Anyway_, Patience, I called to enlist your help. _I _want to take over the world, but I've got some powerful enemies and an empty bag of tricks. Do you think you can get me past them?"

"I'm a former CEO of WalMart, Spicer. I can do anything."

As Patience spoke, Jack wandered away from the phone's charger and toured his basement-now-layer.

"What kind of enemies do you need take out?"

"Well, it's a little hard to explain," Jack admitted, thinking of the Xiaolin Monks. "I think you'll need to see it for yourself." He picked up a JackBot head with all the wiring within frayed and charred. A blinking light overhead that monitored the security system blinked faithfully away- though it also faithfully ignored intruders- and dipped the lab in pale light every few seconds.

"I've tried all kinds of robots," Jack went on. "I've tried regular armed robots, bots like dogs, giant bots, bots disguised as garbage, flying bots, flying bots that spew ink, cheerleader bots, shape-shifting bots, outlaw bots, a flying train, digging, flying, racing machines- everything! I once even built a time machine. Though, I guess that time it was a sort of 'your enemy's enemy is your friend' kind of deal." Jack paused for a moment, looking out over the mountains of spare parts and convoluted scars of machinery hanging from the ceiling and jutting through the walls all around. "And some how it always managed to backfire on me."

"I think we should meet in person," Patience said after pensive pause. "I _will_ need to take a close look at your problems. I'll decide then if you deserve my advice."

"Oh, thank you, Sir! We can meet…"

"Miss."

"What?"

"It's Miss."

There was a _long_ pause.

"It _is_?" Jack almost whispered.

"That often happens over the phone. Just don't forget it, and don't do it again."

"Yes, ma'am!" Jack replied instantly. "Uh, anyway, here's where we can meet…"

The JackBots hovered about Spicer's Evil Lair, picking up Jack's used dishes and extinguished the last of the small fires that refused to quit combustion after an unusual incident earlier in the day. Jack concluded his interaction with the strange Dr. Patience and presently returned to his illuminated map-table of the world.

"I could really go for a pudding cup right now," he commented with a grin of mild anticipation.

Upstairs, the Spicer mansion was empty due to a vacation. Beyond the high walls surrounding the house, rural China reached out and, in the clear skies above, a thin green line tapered through the air. Beyond the four figures riding on the dragon's back lay the whole world, as far as Jack Spicer was concerned. There were others he would need to overcome on his way to becoming Evil Master of Plant Earth, but he would just have to deal with each new problem as it came along.


	2. Xiaolin Dragons

2. Xiaolin Dragons

A good distance away, set at the base of a towering, snow-capped mountain range in rural China, sat the ancient temple of the Xiaolin Monks. Having long since strayed from the immensely rigid, old-fashion system of perpetual training and mediating and sipping tea on a little mat, the temple had been nothing short of a playground for its four star student for a few years.

Actually, its only students.

Though the four were a little less childish by the time this story commences, they were still, nonetheless, teenagers. In fact, the prefrontal lobes of the three boys' brains wouldn't fully develop until the age of twenty-five.

And their names were Clay, Kimiko, Raimundo, and Omi. Don't laugh. The Xiaolin Temple believed in politically correct diversity, another trait recently developed in this modern age. Fifteen hundred years ago, they wouldn't have so much as breathed the same air of anyone who was anything other than mid to upper class Chinese male.

But, there they were, in the modern day.

"But it's _my_ turn to play!" Raimundo whined. He was the Brazilian of the group, an avid soccer player (what the heck _else_?), and the recently promoted Dragon of Wind.

"No _way_, Rai!" Kimiko snapped back. "You played _all day_ yesterday!"

"But you _own _the game, girl! I want to play!"

Kimiko, something of an over-privileged Japanese valley girl, was the Dragon of Fire, and her new Game Sphere was a much fought-over pass time amongst the monks.

"It is MY turn to play!" Omi cried out, shaking his fists in the air. "I haven't got to play _at all_ yet."

"Hold yer horses, little fella," Clay said in his Texan accent that leaned each word against the next. "It's not goin' anywhere."

Omi, the Dragon of Water, was…extremely Chinese. Clay, the polar opposite of Omi and the Dragon of Earth, was…extremely Texan. Not American, that's too broad: Texan. Only, he had no international oil shares.

"All right, Omi, it's your turn," Kimiko said after a moment more. "Here's how you play. This thing here is the console _and_ the controller, so don't drop it or anything. Move your character around by tilting it like this, jump by shaking it once like this, and some of the other action buttons are under your fingers on both sides."

"It's like the orb of tornami," Omi commented as he picked up the Game Sphere.

"Only your little hands barely fit around this one," Rai commented sarcastically.

"Do not insult my hands," Omi snapped, concentrating on the screen. "There is much power in my fists!"

Raimundo rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, whatever." And he wandered away.

Of the four Xiaolin Monks, each had, in his or her own unusual or unfortunate way, seen the world from behind evil eyes at least once in the past; Clay, when an evil earwig possessed him for a time and refused to leave until Clay couldn't stand on his own two feet; Kimiko, during a showdown when she repeatedly entered and exited the Ying Yang world and switched from good to evil countless times; Raimundo, when he joined the Haylin side in a fit of rejection and desperation; And Omi, when he was tricked over to the ways of evil and temporarily caused the world to fall into darkness. By now, the four were well accustomed to the fact that, if they messed up, the word would fall into darkness. How the _entire planet_ so frequently rested on their four shoulders was a complete mystery, but, as one can imagine, it did remarkable things to each of their egos.

Standing in the open air of the temple, Raimundo took a deep breath and glanced up at the sky. The evening was wearing on, but it was still light enough out. In fact, it was light enough out to see a high-speed jet- just a speck in the sky- gradually flying in large laps overhead.

"That…doesn't look like Spicer's jet," Rai commented. "It looks like one of those things they fly in the military." He cocked his head to the side and decided to investigate.

"Dragon's Wake!" he cried out to help initiate the change into the Dragon of Wind. In a whirl of white wind he became a streak of air and flew into the sky. The trail he left formed what looked like the long, sinuous body of a dragon, Raimundo's transparent form the head.

The Dragon of Wind spiraled into the sky and, as the ground shrunk away as though in fright, he neared the guest jet within moments. Becoming a completely invisible, but not undetectable, wind, Rai went right up to the cockpit window and peered inside. The interior was no different from any other jet, and the pilot had nothing conspicuously sinister about her, almost to Raimundo's disappointment.

Suddenly, a little red light flickered on the cockpit display board, followed by a few other little lights. The pilot, face hidden behind a full oxygen mask and visor-adorned helmet, looked up sharply, directly at Raimundo.

"No way!" Rai shouted, backing away from the jet immediately. "There's no way she could have seen me!" But, within moments, Rai realized that she had just looked _through _him, not at him, as she scanned the sky all around. The pilot punched a button on the dashboard, for lack of proper terminology, but the little lights persisted. She mashed a few more buttons and flipped a switch on and off, all with no effect. Rai chuckled as she smashed a fist on the display, but he- and she, too, probably- was surprised with this little fit actually did the trick.

The jet suddenly changed into its version of the next gear up and barrel-rolled away, leaving Raimundo in its figurative dust.

"That was weird," Rai muttered as he returned to the ground within the temple.

"What was?" Dojo, the resident dragon, asked.

"Someone was flying a jet in circles over the temple," Raimundo explained. "But, they were probably just lost."

"Or out sight-seeing," Dojo suggested, somewhat sarcastically since, "thousands of feet up is an inconvenient place to look for the scenic routes. Believe me, I know."

Omi emerged from the temple then, almost a shadow in the dimming light, and glanced about until he spotted Rai.

"Oh, Raimundo! There you are. Come quickly. Master Fung wants to speak with all the Dragons."

"'Kay, be right there," Rai called over. He took one last glance up at the sky, but the jet was long since gone.

Gathered in a room with the Temple's distinct red screen walls and maroon pillars, the four Dragons stood waiting in their formal red robes. It was night, so the round paper lanterns and tall, bowl-shaped braziers were lit.

"Now that you are each full a Dragon of your element," Master Fung began, "you have almost completed your training."

"Almost!" Kimiko exclaimed. "I thought we were _done_! Isn't that why Master Monk Guan sent us back here?"

Master Fung slowly raised one eyebrow. A thought to the effect of, _'When will they learn to wait until I finish?' _scrolled through his head, but he maintained his aplomb.

"As I was saying, you have not quite yet completed your training. As Dragons, the quest for perfection will never cease, but you still have one task remaining that will arm you with the abilities to strive for that perfection."

He paused for a moment to let each Dragon puzzle over what this final challenge could be. Was it a long, solitary journey, entirely on foot? Was there some overwhelming battle they must engage in? Did they have to finally defeat Chase Young, or was there a new threat of which they were unaware?"

"You finally test will be the most difficult of all. You will receive no assistance, guidance, or even advice whatsoever. You four all entirely on your own."

He paused again, and the monks nearly screamed under the pressure of curiosity.

"You must mentor and train a new Xiaolin Monk, from Novice, through to Apprentice, Wu-Dai, and Dragon."

There was silence from the monks for a moment, until Clay said what they were all thinking.

"That's the hardest final test you could think of?"

Master Fung sighed and thought back over the long, arduous process of raising monks.

"Surely, you don't think it will be easy, do you?"

Raimundo laughed out loud.

"Are you kinnin'? It'll be a piece of cake! We have his Xiaolin Monk thing down forwards and backwards!"

"Yeah, we know what we're doing," Kimiko added. "The four of us combined will be able the train the best monk _ever_!"

"Yes, and my superior leadership abilities will surely give this new Xiaolin monk much wisdom in the ways of the martial arts. When will we meet him?"

Master Fung kept his thoughts to himself again.

"The new trainee will arrive tomorrow."


	3. Perfectly Rich, Perfectly Evil

3. Perfectly Rich, Perfectly Evil

"Master, Sir, you have a guest," a JackBot informed its creator.

"Dr. Patience is here? Outstanding! Show her in!"

The JackBot saluted and hovered away. It signaled to another Bot to signal to the one at the front door. Jack was seated in a high-backed chair behind his broad, black table, waiting with his fingertips pressed together in a business-like manner.

Patience came down the ill-lit stairs against the wall, leaving a wedge of light to shoot through the doorway until a JackBot closed it. She was just a tall, lean shadow until she stepped into Jack's halo of light over his desk.

"Dr. Patience, I presume? Please, take a seat."

Patience scrutinized Jack for a moment before taking her place in the chair a JackBot pushed up behind her.

"I thought you were older," was the first thing she said.

"Hey, I'm older now than I've ever been!" Jack retorted without missing a beat.

Patience cleared her throat.

"Of course. Now, Spicer," she began, placing her black bag beside her feet, "On my way over, I took a quick look at the Xiaolin Temple you mentioned. Unfortunately, I couldn't take one of my own jets this time, so the scanning system was less than incompetent. But, at the very least I know where the place is. So, what, exactly, about that place has you stumped?"

"Well, I suppose you could say it's more the people _inside _the Temple, than the Temple itself, that have caused all the trouble," said Jack with what sounded like a mix between snide sarcasm and the air of a celebrity on a talk show. "See, there are these four Xiaolin Monks who've been training there ever since I first began looking for Shen Gong Wu. At first, they weren't such a problem. We were pretty evenly matched. I lost a few, I won a few more. But, then, they kind of upgraded, or something, because they kept gaining all these new, annoying powers, and my JackBots seem to break easier and easier every time I fought those punks! And then there's Chase and Wuya and- thank _God_ Hannibal Bean is gone- and a slew of other _interferences_ that pop up once in a while." Jack was on his feet by now, pacing behind his desk. "So, I still have a few Wu left, but now I'm more interested in _just_ taking over the world. The Wu are a distraction."

"And you want my counsel?"

"Exactly."

Patience crossed one leg and folded her hands in her lap.

"Do you even know who I am?"

The question seemed to puzzle Jack, but he told her what he'd heard as he took his seat again.

"You're a former member of the World-Around Legal Monopoly of Aristocratic, Ruthless Trustees, aren't you? It's only the most evil cooperation to date!"

Patience grinned and nodded slightly.

"Yes, the Trustees, otherwise known as WalMart, _was_ my line of work."

Patience was very lean, with dark eyes and short, dark hair tucked behind her ears. She wore a gray, three-piece pinstripe suit, watch chain and all. She wore no make up, jewelry, or accessories of any kind. She had a strangely ageless look to her, a trait that seemed familiar to Jack, but one he couldn't quite place. She didn't look nearly as evil as Jack had expected her to.

"Now," she continued, "I've retired from that and I spend my time spreading evil one patient at a time."

"Oh, yeah, you're a doctor," Jack recalled. "Um, just what kind of doctor _are_ you?"

Patience couldn't help but laugh in her throat.

"I was hoping you would ask. I'm an oral surgeon."

Jack cringed at the title.

"Ooh, _very_ evil."

"I'm also an engineer, Spicer, so I think I can give your robots the extra kick they need."

"So, you'll partner up?" Jack assumed, perking up a bit.

Patience, too, cringed faintly.

"No, but I will advise you on an 'as-needed' basis…on one condition," she added.

"Shoot."

It was Dr. Patience's turn to put her fingertips together.

"You mentioned him earlier. What do you know about Chase Young?"

"Chase?" Jack drummed his fingers on the table irritably. "Aw, he hates me with a vengeance. _Sometimes_ he doesn't try to kill me, but we aren't even frienemies!" He was about to give her a quick run down of all Chase's plotting since their first encounter, but Patience held up her hand to stop him.

"Chase hates you? Consider that a good thing, Jack. In a strange, strange way, consider it a good thing." She paused for a moment as she got to her feet. "I'll help you try to take over the world. But, don't think you'll find easy sailing once you're past the Xiaolin Monks. You'll still have the militaries of thousands of countries to either break down or pretend of ally yourself with. And, of course, you'll need to get by Rupert Murdoc, all the major fast-food chains, the fashion industry, and the First Untied Church of Christ, Allah, Buddha, Spongebob, and all the other Flying Spaghetti Monsters in the world."

"I can handle 'em!" Jack declared, jumping back to his feet. "All it takes is money!"

"Wiser words were never spoken," Patience said with sarcasm Jack didn't notice. "If you think you have what it takes, I'll see you to the top, Spicer."

Jack and Patience shook hands over the table to seal the deal.

"You know, Jack, when I first walked in here, I thought you were your secretary."


	4. Nutmeg Kake

Chapter 4. Nutmeg Kake

The next morning, the four Dragons still-in-training lined up before the temple entrance to meet their new student.

"Where d'you reckon he'll be from?" Clay asked aloud.

"Probably Australia," Kimiko said flatly.

"Why Australia?"

"Because we already have someone from every other continent except Antarctica and Australia."

"Uh, what about, like, Europe and Africa?" asked Raimundo.

Kimiko shifted her weight. She'd forgotten that Europe and Asia were considered different continents.

"Well, I kind of counted _Jermaine _as Africa."

"Jermaine was from New York City," Omi reminded her, a little puzzled. "Jermaine's great, great, great grandparents were probably from New York City!"

"Oh, never mind," Kimiko sighed. Then, she added after a thought, "Maybe he will be a _she_?"

"Just what we need," Raimundo whined. "Another annoying girl hogging the bathroom."

"Hi there!" a voice suddenly piped up. "Are you Clay, Kimiko, Raimundo, and Omi?"

The Dragons looked down at an exciting little girl standing before them.

"How did you…?" Raimundo began to wonder, as none of them had seen her approach.

"I'm Meg," she said, holding out her hand to shake with Omi.

"Hello, Meg. Pleased to meet you. May I comment on your hair?"

"You certainly may!"

"I find it most bewildering!"

Meg, nearly thirteen years old, had bright red dreadlocks sprouting in all directions. She was between Kimiko and Rai in height, but she had a strong build. She wore a pair of bright green goggles with a black X in each eye up on her forehead to keep her dreads out of her face. She had a yellow short-sleeve shirt with random, light blue stripes flying across it in every direction. A pair of solid gray Capri's lasted until her knees before revealing bright, blue and orange striped stockings with yellow, black, and white sneakers. If one could pry one's eyes from her clothing, Meg was a cute kid, if not a little bit over-active.

"Thank you," Meg chimed back.

To make an uninteresting series of introductions short, Meg was off bouncing about the temple in her _spring-loaded_ sneakers in a matter of minutes. The four monks followed her, a bit hesitantly, in an attempt to offer her a tour of the temple.

"Um, perhaps you would like us to show you around?" Omi suggested, scurrying after her in vain as she hopped freely from place to place.

"Oh, no, but thanks anyway," Meg replied. "I think I can find my way around," she said as she took an extra tall bounce straight into the air and got a view of the temple rooftops.

"Well, then, maybe we should go meet Master Fung?" Omi tried.

"Now, wait up, Omi," Raimundo interrupted. "_We're_ the Xiaolin Masters now! Master Fung said he wasn't going to intervene."

"Yes, you are quite right, Raimundo," Omi said with a sharp now. "Meg Kate, come down here, please. I am the leader here, so I think we should begin by…"

"What? Who made you the leader?" Kimiko interrupted.

"Why, I have always been the leader," Omi explained flatly. "I am the most skilled, of course."

"I thought we were all supposed to be of equal skill, Omi, now that we're _Dragons_," Rai replied with his usual attitude.

To not even Meg's surprise, an argument broke out among the four dragons.

Meg stood by and watched for a moment with a small, silly grin, amused by the evident incompatibility of her new masters.

"But we don't even know her skill level yet!"

"We don't even know what her element is!"

"There _are_ no other elements! Duh!"

"Stop it! Listen to _me_! I know what we should do!"

"You don't know _anything_! You can't even speak straight!"

"No offence, but I don't think you're exactly the right personality to train a new, impressionable monk."

"How're the _four _of us supposed to train _one _little monk?"

"Amazingly well!"

And so fourth.

Eventually, Meg piped up once she felt the bickering had gone on long enough.

"Excuse me, Monkie Masters!" she sang out. "They sent me a schedule, you know! You don't have to figure out any of that stuff!"

Meg held up a sheet of blue paper with what looked vaguely like a school schedule printed on it. The four Dragons fell silent and, after a short pause to pass glances around, Clay approached Meg to inspect her weekly routine.

Sunday- Training with Omi

Monday- Training with Kimiko

Tuesday- Training with Clay

Wednesday- Training with Raimundo

Thursday- Training with Omi and Clay

Friday- Training with Kimiko and Raimundo

Saturday- Training with All Four

So, because it was Wednesday, it was Raimundo's duty to break the ice and start Meg off at the temple. In the meantime, the others sat to the side to watch and silently scrutinize, naturally.

"Do I have to wear those funny bathrobes you guys wear?" Meg asked not long after she and Rai entered the training yard.

"Yeah, eventually," Rai replied casually. "Now, just so we're not teaching you old tricks, I want you to tell me everything you already know."

Meg cocked her head to the side.

"Okay. In 1898, the Boxer Rebellion in Beijing led to the Boxer Protocol, which allowed ruling European powers to maintain a military within their sphere of influence in China, which ended up bringing about reforms in the early 20th century around World War One…"

"Whoa, whoa, hold up," Rai stopped her. "I meant, like, everything you know about fighting, girl, not the history of China! What did you learn before you came here?"

Meg rolled her head back in a long 'Oooh' of comprehension.

"Well," she said briskly, "I never exactly learned any of your Old School Martial Art Techniques, or anything like that. What I did…well, it's hard to explain…I'm kind of self-taught..."

"Just show me, then," said Rai, taking on a prepared stance with his hands up. "Go on, try to hit me."

Meg giggled and started to bounce a little on her wild sneakers.

"Okie Dokie! You asked for it!"

She jumped straight up build some energy and called out something the others didn't quite understand. Then, before Rai knew what had happened, Meg hit the ground and shot off like a loose rubber ball. She ricocheted off pillars, off walls, off a tree, and was soon zipping around so quickly that she knocked a shingle off a roof that no one realized she'd even gone near. She was literally just a streak of bright red, green, yellow, blue, and orange. And, _just like_ a rampant rubber ball, she went flying straight at Rai and knocked him to the ground by curling up and hurling into his gut.

"My kidneys!" Rai moaned, incapacitated on the ground for a brief moment.

"That was out of control!" Kimiko exclaimed from the sidelines. "How did you do that?"

"She was whippin' aroun' like a horse's tail in swarm of flies!" Clay added.

Meg shrugged and giggled, kicking back one heel. She had come to a remarkably sudden stop after zipping around like a pinball.

"It's my element," she said secretively.

"What's your element? The power of A.D.H.D?" Rai asked, irritated, as he got back to his feet.

"Nope! Guess again!"

The monks sighed, each feeling a little degraded by the prospect.

"As much as you clearly want to play games," Omi began, "I think it would be better if you just told us your element as so we can get along with your training sooner."

Meg sighed and put her weight on one hip, but she still seemed quite amused.

"Aw, shucks, you guys! We've got all the time in the world. We aren't exactly in a rush."

"You'd be surprised at how often our moving quickly has determined the fate of the planet," Rai said with thick sarcasm. "But, I know what you mean. I remember when we used to think that way."

Kimiko laughed a little.

"Yeah, remember the time we used the Shard of Lightning to pause time so we could get all our chores done in, like, three seconds?"

Kim suddenly snapped her fingers in realization.

"Oh, Meg! You must have the element of Light!" she exclaimed.

Meg snapped her fingers back and pointed at Kim with a broad grin.

"Dead on! Super smat!"

Omi titled his head in wonder at this new slang.

"What is this "smat" you mention?" he asked.

"Oh, I collect slang and accents from all over the world," Meg explained. "Smat means Smart in Boston."

"Oh boy," Clay muttered. "Now Omi can rip up sayings from _all over_ the place!"

Because they presently decided that it really _wasn't_ necessary for Meg to begin training that day, the five were about to take some time off to just get to know Meg. _However_, Dojo the _real_ dragon appeared in the knick of bad timing to tell them another Shen Gong Wu had revealed itself.

"Ooh, a Geico© Gecko!" Meg laughed when she saw Dojo.

Dojo stared blankly for a moment.

"That's a new one." He quickly promptly to the Wu at hand. "Hurry up and hop on, kids! You can look at the scroll on the way," Dojo told them as he transformed in a whirl of smoke into a massive dragon. Meg easily bounced up after the others and, as Dojo took to the sky, Kimiko took a moment to voice a certain opinion.

"Dojo, you really can't call us 'kids' anymore. Meg is the only _kid_ here now."

"Hey, I'm just over fifteen hundred years old, and you're just over fifteen! For the rest of your lives, I'll consider you _kids_," Dojo snapped over his shoulder.

"But, we _are_ Dragons of our elements now," Clay added with a grin. "Technically, we could travel around without Dojo if we wanted to."

"What?" Dojo cried out. "Replace me? You can't replace me! You need me to find the Wu!"

"Actually, Clay's right," said Kimiko. "We _could_ just use technology to detect the Wu, and we _could_ fly there ourselves with our new Xiaolin Dragon abilities."

"Real nice!" Dojo growled, rolling his eyes. "After everything I've done for you little ingrates…"

"But we won't replace you, Dojo," Omi said, patting the dragon's side reassuringly.

"Because we don't want to do all the work of traveling ourselves," added Rai.

Meg, who made Kimiko look tamed and boring in her wildly colorful array and red dreadlocks, was studying the Sacred Scroll in utter confusion.

"So, what does this "Green Thoughts" thingy do?"


	5. SMART Bots

Chapter 5: SMART Bots

"No assembly required: _that's_ my kind of robot!"

Jack Spicer stood in the tall and open garage of his lair to inspect the shining new robot that had just arrived. His Jack Bots stacked the sides of its massive crate against one wall. According to the mailing label, Dr. Patience's office had it sent out as a twelve-pack of Texas-Style Extra Large dentistry chairs. And that is essentially how large the robot was: about two chairs across, two chairs deep, and three chairs high. Plus, it came with all the extra- and unpleasant- gadgetry of the device, as well.

"All right, how do I work this thing?" Jack asked no one in particular. The Jack Bots were still wiping off packaging peanuts as Jack climbed up into the central control seat of the machine.

The robot's body was similar to the cockpit of a jet, only more rounded. It looked vaguely like a crouched bird in its Off position, with long, dexterous legs folding down from the body. In good evil taste, the body was painted dark gold with a black blast-shield. The legs of the bot were black, with armored, three-toed talons, and the sides of the body had slim, rectangular hatch doors of unknown purpose. The flat back of the body boasted a large black booster engine and the nose of the body was a silver drill.

"Sure, it looks cool," Jack muttered as he opened an envelope on the driver's seat. "But does it work?" He ripped open the letter from Patience's office after a few failed attempts and read the dentist's instructions. "Let's see…Okay: _This is a SMART Bot_," he read aloud. "_The SMART stands for_ _Stimuli Mirroring Automatic Reaction Technology._ What the heck is that supposed to mean? _That means, in layman's terms, that the A.I. in this robot can instantly respond to its surroundings, far beyond the abilities of Organic intelligence. This is a mini SMART bot: I sent you this one so you can play around with it and learn how to use the control panel before I put you behind a regular sized SMART. (A regular sized SMART is no smaller than a fifteen-story office building). Similar to it's European counterpart, the SMART bot is compact, highly maneuverable, and (believe it or not) energy efficient. I actually own stock in the Smart Car._"

Jack skimmed a few lines down to look for instructions, but Patience had not included her own. Instead, she'd sent him the Privately Owned Demolition Technology For Dummies guidebook.

"If that isn't a statement, nothing is," said Jack as he picked up the big yellow book. He sat back in the leather control seat- the _only _seat- and put his feet up on the control board to search for the chapter on SMART bots.

"Hey, it says here that you have the option to plug in a controller from any of the major game systems as a method of controlling the robot! That's pretty cool. I guess they figured the same guys buying these things would also be gamers or something."

To bring the bot to life or put it to rest, Jack needed to press a narrow blue button that looked remarkably like a space bar near the top of the control panel. The button was hidden behind a narrow shelf to prevent the machine from being ordered to shut down simply because of a sudden stop that could cause the driver's head to fly forward and smack the dashboard because he wasn't wearing his safety belt. Or so the guide explained.

"Aw, who needs this thing!" Jack finally exclaimed. He tossed the book out of the cockpit and, in excellent Spicer form, began testing buttons.

Jack discovered a small collection of long-lost sneakers and Frisbees on the roof of his mansion, after the SMART bot launched him out of the cockpit via ejector seat.

"I'll need to remember _not_ to pull that lever," Jack made a mental note as he hovered off the roof with his Heli-pack.

Back in his garage with his Jack Bots snickering secretively, young Spicer returned to the instruction manual for the basics in SMART bot operation.

Though no one would ever believe it, Jack was actually a fast learner. One might argue that Jack never learned his lesson from the Xiaolin monks- after the trend of being unfailingly defeated began around the time they became Apprentices- but that wasn't a matter of learning a lesson: it was just determination. As many times as Jack's enemies dubbed him an idiot or moron or sniveling little boy, there's something to be said for the mind that taught himself to design and build highly advanced robots by the time he was a teenager. For this reason, when his Shen Gong Wu detector alerted him to head west a few hours after he first opened the control manual, Jack already had a thorough understanding of how to operate his new mini SMART bot.

"Sir, there's a new Shen Gong Wu alert in... Kashmir," a Jack Bot informed him, holding up the Wu detector.

Jack tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"Hmm. Do I really want to go after yet another Shen Gong Wu? I suppose I could just take this opportunity to test out and show off my new SMART bot. Yeah, I think that's what I'll do."

Jack hit a button to his right and the black blast-shield swept down with a hiss. With a little more switch flipping and dial turning, Jack brought the bot to life. The machine rose up on its heavily armored, bird-like legs. The large bay doors of the garage opened with a grinding sound as Jack pulled his goggles down over his eyes. A pair of sleek jet wings emerged from the body, revealing the purpose of the slim, rectangular hatch doors. With the bay doors open and the wings spanned, Jack fired up the booster engine and…

The SMART bot literally ran out of the garage, and in a matter of seconds it had singed Jack's lawn and launched towards cruising altitude. Jack was flattened to the driver's seat. Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes and zipped back in his ears and hair. There was a deafening rushing sound, along with the roar of the engine, that seemed to last forever. But, as abruptly as he had been smacked to the chair, the pressure eased and he could sit normally.

"Whew!" he breathed as he shook his head sharply and put his goggles back on his forehead. "I didn't think it was going to do that."

Just then, the display screen in the center of the control board blinked on.

The words _This is a pre-recorded message_ showed for a moment in white on black, and then Dr. Patience's message played.

"This message was programmed to play once you figured out how to get my SMART into flight at a steady altitude of 10,000 feet or greater. I assume, Jack, that you've read at least some of the instruction manual, but you could search that thing from cover to cover- it is the _only_ text on SMART- and never find a single piece of info on the SMART bot's weapons and defenses."

"Ooh," Jack grinned expectantly. "My favorite part."

The picture on the display screen switched to a series of diagrams and partly animated instructions- similar to the safety run-downs on Boeing 747 passenger flights- accompanied by Patience's spoken instructions.

"While a great deal of the SMART bot is light-weight, impenetrable armor, that armor's primary function is to protect the weapons, not the operator. Any SMART bot can operate freely of human manipulation, but _only_ if given a very specific goal and _only_ as long as its energy supplies last."

"As for the weaponry…"

Patience listed a series of extremely destructive heat-seeking, coordinate-guided, and remote-control missiles, and a series of automatically aiming machine guns and turrets that can be armed on a surveillance program or to search out moving objects. The bot also carried a supply of chemical weapons, retractable blades in the legs to prevent the enemy from tying the legs and trying to trip the bot, and one, very small, low-radiation nuclear bomb.

"Your mini bot, however," Patience explained, "doesn't come with the nuke. You should be arriving at your destination relatively soon, so feel free try test out any of the bot's weapons."

The screen blinked off and left Jack with only the roar of the engine. If it was possible, Jack was actually _more_ pale than usual.

"I'm not entirely sure if I want to use machine guns…" he commented tentatively. "I just want to kick their butts, not _murder_ them."

_Arrival at Kashmir in one minute_, a computerized voice informed him.

"One minute?" Jack repeated. "That was fast!"

On the horizon, Jack saw the dimly flickering lights of the war zone that was Kashmir. He also spotted Dojo far behind and below.

But the SMART bot picked up speed again as it began its descent, slowing just in time to avoid hurling Jack through the windshield when it came a stop.

_Next time, buckle up_, the voice reminded him as the wings retracted back into the body.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jack snapped. "Let's just find that Wu."

Kashmir was a dark place, littered with demolished buildings, scorched wasteland, and unidentified scraps of tanks and machinery. Jack rode past huge heaps of blackened, bloodied scrap metal and rolled vehicles. A bomb went off in the distance, lighting the sky for a moment. Though the dark blast shield lowered visibility slightly, Jack just turned the bot's headlights on rather than expose himself to the likely rank-smelling air outside.

Within minutes, the SMART brought him to the site of the Shen Gong Wu, buried under the bottom half of a roasted tank. Jack used the bot's talon-like foot to kick aside the rubble and reveal the Green Thoughts.

"What _is_ that?" Jack asked aloud, peering down from the bot.

_The Green Thoughts Shen Gong Wu_, the SMART replied. _This artifact gives one the ability to hear the thoughts of any living flora in one's own language. It is particularly useful in tracking through forests, as no plant ever forgets. _

"Oh. That's convenient," Jack muttered, referring to the SMART's explanation.

He noticed Dojo dropping the monks off not too far away, so Jack decided to set a trap. He positioned the SMART in a crouched position just behind the Green Thoughts and hid among the copious amounts of rubble all around. A 'camouflage' command allowed the bot to blend in a little better with its surroundings, but once Jack turned the head lights off and the bot went silent, it was virtually invisible.

"They are going to _pee their pants_ when they see what this thing can do," Jack snickered. "I should have brought my Camera bots!"


	6. Kashmir

Chapter 6. Kashmir

When Dojo landed amongst the hideous destruction of Kashmir, the monks were a little bit hesitant to jump down. The air was rancid with decay and the sharp scent of burning rubber and melted metal.

"Is that a body?" Raimundo asked with a tone of severe concern.

"Who knows?" Dojo replied, shrinking back down. "Did you know that Kashmir is _the most_ dangerous place on Earth? So, keep on your toes, guys. You've got a better chance of survival with your neck in the jaws of one of Chase Young's jungle cats!"

Dojo pointed in the direction of the Shen Gong Wu and swiftly hid under Clay's hat.

"This place is _creepy_," Kimiko whispered, tiptoeing around the remains of a shrapnel-stuffed Jeep.

"_I'll_ say," Meg added. "How come my first time out had to be to Hell On Earth?"

"Hey, we didn't _plan_ this," Raimundo reminded her.

A cold wind swept through the wreckage, carrying with it more stench and slightly nauseating suggestions of distant events. Clay was in the lead, so he was the first one to spot the Green Thoughts.

"Hey, Meg, does that look like the Wu you saw in the scroll?" Clay asked, pointing to the little object resting on a disembodied car door.

"Uh, yeah," Meg confirmed. "That's the baby."

The five of them trotted up to grab the Wu and get out of Kashmir as fast as possible.

"There's no sign of Jack or Wuya," Kimiko stated with a glance around. "Why don't you take it, Meg?"

Meg nodded quickly and stepped up a small heap of loose junk to pick up the Green Thoughts. It looked like a green winter cap with long earflaps and a couple of vine-like drawstrings.

"That's cute," Meg said to herself quietly as she reached out to pick it up.

Suddenly there was an insanely loud screech and power-up sound from Jack Spicer's SMART bot as it jumped up, sent debris flying, and terminated its camouflage, returning to gold and black. The bot rose up and, headlights blazing in the darkness, unfolded a series of machine gun turrets from its body.

Jack broadcasted his voice from the cockpit of the SMART.

"Mua ha ha ha ha! I hope you brought your riot gear, you Xiaolin epitaphs, because even _you_ can't doge bullets!"

Meg screeched and leapt out of the guns' crosshairs.

"What is that?" she screamed, leaping behind Clay.

"That's Jack Spicer," said Omi violently.

"But it doesn't look like one of Jack's robots," Kimiko noticed.

"Yeah, it looks more like the Shen-garoo," Rai pointed out.

"Maybe!" Jack hollered sarcastically. "Except this thing won't make ya puke!"

Before they could add any more of the meaningless banter that newscasters are so famous for, Jack opened fire. The monks just barely had time to leap out of the way. Clay grabbed Meg and dropped her on the lee side of a decommissioned tank.

"You stay here," he told her. "Let us handle Jack- he's a pushover!"

The SMART bot stood over the Green Thoughts with its feet planted and pivoted all around in its attempts to hit the four monks.

"Tangle Web Comb!" Kimiko held out the Wu that shot ensnaring vines in an attempt to squeeze the SMART bots legs to get it to trip, but Jack merely pushed a button and a pair of razor sharp wheel-blades sliced through the vines.

In a swirl of spit-fire, Jack flickered bullets everywhere, but all the monks escaped unscathed.

"We can't escape those guns forever!" Omi shouted.

"None of our Wu will even put a dent in that thing!" said Kimiko.

"Hey," Jack snickered, "How many bullets does it take to stop four monks? Four! And I've got at least another 4,000 rounds to burn through, baby!"

"Give us your best shot, Jack!" Clay taunted. "Dragon of Earth!"

The ground began to rumble and an illusion of a stone dragon appeared around Clay, as though he was inside the beast's ghost. He rose off the ground about a foot and flew, fists first, straight into the side of the SMART bot. "Dragon's Talons!"

"Holy Crud Muffins!" Jack cried out as the entire body of the SMART bot shook and vibrated. The thing teetered on one foot for a moment before resettling heavily with the screech of gears.

Seeing that Clay's Dragon Talon attack had an effect on the bot that _none_ of their Wu would, each monk took on his or her Dragon form and attacked in unison.

"Dragon of Wind! Dragon's Wings!"

"Dragon of Water! Dragon's Blood!"

"Dragon of Fire! Dragon's Breath!"

All at once, Jack's view was blurred out by a raging storm of the elements. Four ghostly dragons enshrouded each monk, weaving a tight yarn-ball shape around the SMART with their trailing tails. A cyclone, part of Raimundo's 'Dragon's Wings' move, drifted down from the bomb-scorched skies and beat up a swirling torrent of scrap metal and other debris. High-speed blast of icicles and super-heated water threatened to scar straight through the SMART's blast shield. Plus, Kimiko's white, blue, and orange fires turned the nearby metal white hot and, combined with Omi's water, produced huge clouds of steam that reduced visibility to almost zero.

Even with all this, the SMART bot managed to hold its ground, even if that meant crouching down to become the smallest possible target.

Inside Jack's cockpit, a number of blinking alarms and gauges lit up and the blast shield was hot to the touch.

_Systems overload_, the SMART began to repeat.

"Fire! Fire! Fire!" Jack continued to unleash every single missile and bomb at his disposal. Frequently, a monk would go flying as a result of an explosion, but Jack quickly realized that regular weapons couldn't stand up to magic powers. So, amidst the chaos and commotion of the raging battle, he fired up the tunneling drill on the nose of the SMART bot. And, before the monks even realized he was gone, Jack had tunneled down through a layer of scrap metal, found the long-lost, once-fertile ground of Kashmir, and vanished into the earth, taking the Green Thoughts with him.

"What's the big deal?" Jack cried out. "This thing was supposed to be unstoppable, but it barely did any more good than my Jack Bots! I'm calling Patience."

Jack set the SMART's guidance system to tunnel on a homebound course as long as underground plumbing would allow. In the dim lighting from the illuminated control board, Jack switched on the video-phone and called Dr. Patience's office. He was met with only a recorded message.

…_open 8am to 6pm, Monday thru Friday on most business days…_

"Crap!"

Jack tapped his fingers impatiently. After a moment, he remembered Patience's letter from earlier. He found it, a bit crunched, in the shadows by his feet. Turning the pages over and checking the letterhead, he found a second number that he hoped would put him through to Patience.

"Bingo!"

Using the video-phone on the control panel again, Jack only waited a few moments before Patience picked up.

In one of those rare and candid villain moments, Jack discovered Patience in what looked like her bedroom, in a pair of red and white pajamas that showed the Canadian Maple Leaf on one shoulder and the Scottish Thistle on the other. Her hair was completely disheveled, as though she had just woken up.

She sighed irritably.

"What is it, Spicer?"

"Patience! W.T.F? This SMART bot isn't half of what it's cracked up to be! I only just barely escaped those hyper-active little monks!"

Patience rubbed a knuckle in one squinting eye.

"First of all, Jack, it's 2 a.m. where I am. Second, you need to put the SMART on autopilot before it can be even remotely useful. Like I said, humans can't react fast enough."

"It doesn't matter how fast I react," Jack snapped back, "when they use their Dragon Element powers! They've got Shen Gong Wu! Your robots completely _can't_ stand up to them. Just look!"

Jack pressed a square little button that, at the turn of a dial, e-mailed Patience a video of the SMART's last twenty minutes.

Patience glanced away from the camera for a moment to view the video. Her only response to the monks powers came in the form of briefly raised eyebrows.

"Who is that fifth one, there in the beginning?" she asked.

"No idea," Jack replied truthfully. "I've never seen her before."

"She looks like she jumped out of a Dr. Seuss book."

Jack just rolled his eyes.

"Well, what are ya gonna do about the robot?"

"You'll need to enter them in a Showdown with high stakes," Patience yawned, "and you'll need a specialized SMART robot for it. Call me back next month," she said flatly.

"_Next month_?" Jack exclaimed. But the screen had already gone blank. "I can't a _month_! What if…" Jack smacked the armrest. "Aw, whatever. She'd better come up with one damn amazing robot!"

_Next time: Jack becomes the proud owner of one damn amazing robot!_


	7. In the Shadows of the Trees

Chapter 7. In the Shadows of the Trees

The dust gradually settled and it became evident that the Green Thoughts was in evil hands.

"I can't believe he got away!" Raimundo exclaimed.

"And he left quite a burrow, too," Clay remarked, stepping up to the edge of the robot's tunnel and tipping the brim of his hat back a bit.

Dojo popped out to inspect the situation.

"Well the Green Thoughts is gone that's too bad let's get the heck out of here!"

He morphed back to his traveling size and urged the monks to jump on board. Meg appeared from the shadows wearing a quizzical expression.

"You guys lost?" she asked, seeing how seriously bruised and singed the Dragons were. "Quite a first lesson…" she added, quietly.

"Yeah…" Kimiko said, realizing the fact for the first time. "We…did? How did Jack win? Jack hasn't done anything right since…since…"

"Who cares!" Dojo nearly shouted. "Let's get OUT of here!"

"Okay, okay, don't blow a fuse," Kimiko muttered.

Once all five were up on Dojo's back, the dragon flew out of Kashmir faster than they're ever known him to fly. Meg actually began to slide towards his tail under the force of the momentum.

"Wait, I don't get it," Meg said as she scooted herself back into place behind Kimiko. "You said Jack Spicer was no problem, but he took off on you!"

"Like a greased pig!" Clay added.

"It was that new robot he was in," Rai started to explain.

"Jack Spicer has _never_ used machine guns on us before," Omi added.

This new information puzzled Meg.

"He's never used guns? Why not? I thought you said he was evil?"

"Well, he is," said Kimiko, "but he's not that _kind_ of evil."

Meg shook her headful of cord-like dreads.

"Wait! I missed something! There are different _kinds_ of evil? Like, lesser evils?

"Yeah," said Dojo. "Jack Spicer is a _lesser_ evil."

"But, villains like Chase Young and Wuya are greater evils!" said Omi.

"So, if Jack is a lesser evil, then you four don't stand a _chance_ against Wuya or this Chase Young guy," Meg pointed out.

"No!" Omi exclaimed, exasperated. "Jack is nothing! He is just the point of the snow block of evil-doers!"

"Tip of the iceberg," Clay corrected him.

"Whatever! It…doesn't make sense!" Omi cried, stressed at the thought of being outwitted by Jack.

"It _is_ weird," Kimiko agreed. "We're Dragons- it just doesn't make sense for Jack to beat us."

The conversation continued on in similar fashion all the way over China until they returned to the temple. After Dojo shrunk back down and he and Omi scooted off to ponder where Jack got his new robot, Kimiko apologized to Meg.

"Sorry that your first time out had to be to Kashmir, Meg," she said sincerely. "Don't worry- next time, Jack won't be such a problem. Good _always_ wins in the end. Trust me: we know!"

The others wandered off towards the kitchen.

"I think better on a full stomach," Clay commented.

For the next few weeks, they made literally zero progress on the mystery of Jack's robot. No website contained any data on the design of the bot, nor who might have made it. A website profiling all the major evil-doers had more information on Osama Bin Laden's favorite type of soup than it did on Jack's robots.

"This stupid orthopedic cookie keeps popping up!" Kimiko cried out eventually. "Floss when you can, kids!" she said sarcastically.

The monks did, however, make excellent progress as teachers and student.

"I don't want to do all these chores!" Meg snapped back at Raimundo. "There's no point! It isn't exactly the "Wax on, wax off" kind of deal, you know! It's just plain old scrubbing!"

"We had to do these chores when we were just starting off," Rai reminded her.

"Yeah, and Jack Spicer still kicked your butt!" She shoved the bucket back to him.

"That was a once in a lifetime win for Spicer! And he technically didn't even win! He just escaped!"

He shoved the bucket back.

"I am _not_ getting down on my hands and knees to scrub this WHOLE FLOOR!" Meg screamed. "This is a waste of time! People are just going to walk on it anyway!"

"Don't raise your voice to me, girly!"

"What- as though you didn't want to do chores when you were my age!" Meg dropped the bucket on the floor and marched off in a huff.

"Hey! You can't walk away from me! I'm the Master here! Get back here!" Rai threw his hands up in the air and dropped down on the floor in defeat.

"Having trouble with the little lightnin' bolt?" Clay asked as he approached from another room.

"How did Master Fung ever get _all four_ of us to behave! How did he get us to clean floors! That girl has no respect for authority whatsoever!"

"If that isn't the pot callin' the kettle black, I don't know whut is," said Clay. "You weren't exactly teacher's pet either, as I recall."

"Oh, please," Rai snapped, jumping back to his feet. "Let's not back up _that_ tree again! I'm never _am_ going to live that down, am I? _Oh, Raimundo joined the Heylin side_," he recalled in a mocking voice. "_Oh, Raimundo was the last to be apprentice_ just because he only tried to save Master Fung's life! Yeah, I messed up a few times! But so didn't, gee, all of us!"

"No need to get edgy on me, Rai! I'm just sayin'…"

"You're always _just sayin'_" Rai imitated. "Well, I've more than made up for my mistakes, and I deserve a little more respect around here!" Raimundo stomped off in a fury, leaving Clay to himself, and to notice Meg watching from behind a sliding door.

"Raimundo joined the Heylin side?" Meg asked tentatively.

Clay gave a short laugh.

"Yeah, for like, two days! Wuya took over the world for a while because of it, but he fixed it in the end."

Meg nodded slowly and eventually retreated back through the door and went outside.

The sun was low in the sky, but she still had quite a few hours until dinner. Once she was outside, though, Meg found no relief.

"Hey," Dojo noticed her. "I thought you were supposed to be in there doing chores."

Meg sat down on the steps to the temple entrance and rested her head in her hands.

"Apparently, I _am_ supposed to be. But I don't see the point the chores they have me do. And the training is even weaker! I've gotten along just fine with my own style!"

Dojo shook his head and waved a reprimanding finger at her.

"You kids never learn, do you? Those chores are for your own good! So what if they last for six hours every day? You should learn to respect your elders!"

"They're five years older than me," Meg reminded him flatly.

"That doesn't matter," said Dojo, putting his nose in the air. "You still have to listen to them. They're Dragons- they know what they're doing."

Meg got to her feet and looked out at the woods beyond the river and field.

"Well, they're yet to impress me," she muttered. "I'm going for a walk."

Dojo straightened up and pointed at her accusingly.

"You can't just leave! You're too little: you'll get lost!"

"I won't_ get lost_," Meg snapped over her shoulder, insulted. With a dash and a bound, she went bouncing off in long strides. She jumped right over the river along the temple and reached the forest a minute later.

Meg calmed her bouncing nature and strolled into the calm cool of the Chinese forest. Wandering through the skinny trees and bushy ferns, she couldn't help but hope she would find a panda or perhaps a wild tiger. Instead, meandering through the flora, she heard voices. Becoming both alert and curious, Meg jumped silently into the branches overhead and tiptoed her way towards the sounds.

In a man-made clearing, she discovered none other than Jack Spicer with that terrible black and gold machine. He was talking with someone, a tall, thin woman, who appeared to have arrived on foot.

Remaining perfectly silent, Meg strained to listen in on their conversation.

"I think I have them all covered. It didn't take long to figure out how to beat them- the bitch was in designing something scientifically possible."

"So when will it be ready?" asked Jack, flanked by a couple of Jack Bots.

"I told you, Spicer, it's going to take time. Give me at _least _three more weeks. I'm a very busy person- if I didn't already have another appointment out here, I never would have come to meet you. Just let the monks drop their guard for a while- that way you know they'll accept the challenge with the new bot. Don't forget, Jack: you'll be a joke in the eyes of everyone until you prove yourself to be a threat."

"Who's _everyone_?" asked Jack.

"The armies of the world," the woman replied flatly, beginning to take her leave.

"Hey, wait a second," Jack stopped her. "Here's what I want to know: How come you're doing all this for me? What's the catch? When are ya gonna drop the bill on my head?"

She tilted her head back and put her weight on one hip, but only for a moment.

"Primarily, it's out of vengeance. I have something of a respect-loathe relationship going on, and I just want to see this certain individual writhe in incredulity when, in due time, you crush him under the massive talon of a full-sized SMART bot."

She shrugged simply and disappeared into the shadows.

Jack, totally lost by her statement, shook his head and jumped into the cockpit of the SMART bot with the two Jack Bots. The black blast shield snapped shut and, once the engine fired up and the wings extended, Jack launched off with a running start and disappeared into the distant skies so quickly that Meg couldn't see him within moments.

Immediately, she jumped up and balanced along the branches and followed after the strange women- who looked immensely familiar for some reason. The woman wasn't too hard to find in her pinstripe suit, and Meg caught up to her after a few minutes. But, by the time she reached her, she was already involved in a conversation with her other appointment.

"Even _you_ can't handle killer robots with footprints four city blocks wide," the woman scoffed to a figure in the shadows.

"Patience, you don't seriously think Spicer has a chance," the man partly asked, partly told her.

"He _doesn't_ have a chance. But, as long as he beats you, I'll be happy. Or, as long as you find yourself trying to defeat him for the sake of saving the world. _That_ would be too good to be true."

"Don't count on it…"

The conversation stopped suddenly and Patience looked to the side sharply. The man whispered something that Meg couldn't hear.

Suddenly, someone or something smashed into Meg and knocked her to the ground. She landed- and possibly bounced a little- right at Patience's feet. She was, however, not phased in the least.

"I know you!" she exclaimed happily, sitting up on the ground. "You're my dentist from back home! What are you doing here, Miss Seek?"

Dr. Patience clasped her head in her hands when she saw Meg.

"Nutmeg Kake," she said. "I can't believe it. Is there no place of sanctuary? What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"You know her?" the voice in the shadows asked.

"I'm a Xiaolin Monk now, Miss Seek! I'm training with Clay, Kimiko, Raimundo, and Omi at the temple!" Meg stopped suddenly and changed her mood sharply. "Well…sort of. It isn't as much fun as I thought it would be."

"_You're_ training with the Xiaolin Monks? How is that possible?"

"I'm the Dragon of Light," Meg said proudly, putting her thumb to her collar. "They're all supposed to be my teachers, but they aren't much fun. Wait, I already said that, didn't I?"

A sort of shocked but pleased sound emitted from Patience.

"Would you excuse me for a split second, Meg?" she asked, suddenly very polite. "I need to have a quick word with my friend here."

The shocked and insulted pronunciation of the word "friend" came from the forest, but beyond that Meg heard nothing. She looked like a rag doll, sitting on the forest floor with her legs out and the backs of her hands on the ground between her legs.

"Who are you talking to?" Meg asked intrusively.

Patience reappeared from the cover of the trees.

"Just an old friend of mine, Meg," she explained. "Now, Meg, I think you really should be getting back to the temple. They're probably wondering what happened to you."

"Naw, I told that annoying little dragon where I was going. They won't miss me."

"Tsk, tsk," Patience actually annunciated the words. "It can be trying, I know. But, if you ever need a break, you just give me a call, all right?"

"Really?" Meg jumped to her feet. "Aw, thanks, Miss Seek! You're the best dentist I ever had!" Meg gave Seek a big bear hug, something that nearly shortened her life-span alarmingly, and promptly bounded back towards the temple.

"_Who_, aside from immensely annoying, did you say she was?" the man asked.

"Do you know what Bullet-Time is? If Meg is the Dragon of Light, then she can dodge bullets, and in this day and age that is one overwhelmingly helpful power. She's _not_ the sort of crazy kid I need fighting againstme."


	8. The Grand Canyon

Chapter 8. The Grand Canyon

Meg happily went bouncing back to the temple, just in time for dinner. She bounced right over the temple's exterior walls and landed in the courtyard just outside the dining hall. Skipping along, greatly amused at having run into her old dentist, Meg found the others already eating in the dining room.

"Hi guys!"

"Where have _you_ been?" Raimundo asked.

"Yeah, you're late for dinner," Kimiko told her.

Meg pulled up a seat at the table and reached for some food.

"How long was I gone for?" asked Meg.

"Uh, like, half an hour," Rai told her.

"And you already started eating without me? You didn't want to, like, look for me or anything?"

"Why should we go looking for ya," Clay began around a mouthful of steak, "when the food's gettin' cold?"

Meg just let this roll off her back for now.

"Well, when _I _was out in the forest, I found out something _very_ interesting!"

"What? That cute little squirrels _won't_ play with you like they do in those little kiddy movies you watch?" Kimiko teased.

"Squirrels are not cute!" Omi snapped quietly.

"Girl, there can't possibly be a single thing in that forest that we haven't already seen about a thousand times by now," Rai told her. "Just eat your egg rolls."

Meg glared at them and didn't touch her food for about ten minutes. None of them, snorting and stuffing away food, noticed her. Eventually, Meg picked up her dish, knocked on some more rice, and took her food outside.

"Butt-heads," she muttered. She sat on the steps and munched quietly on her food, her spirits dampened for the first time in a _long_ time. "I thought this was going to be at least a _little_ bit of fun."

The days continued to pass, twenty four long hours at a time, and Meg took it upon herself to make the lives of her new Masters that much more difficult. When it was time to do chores, Meg would bolt around the area faster than they could see her and upset the dust from the rafters or the crud from the gutters. At training, she would either laze around or use the Shen Gong Wu to play practical jokes. At dinner time, she started food fights, after a bath- if she even took one- she would shake out her dreads like a dog and soak everything around, and at night she refused to go to bed quietly.

"You cannot keep doing this!" Omi screamed down at her at training one afternoon. "I am your teacher! You must listen to me!"

"You're not a real teacher," Meg yawned. "You're, like, a T.A."

"What is a T.A?"

"Teacher's assistant."

Kimiko, even more short-tempered than ever with her newly inflated ego, completely couldn't handle Meg sometimes.

"What are you doing to my laptop?" Kim screamed one afternoon.

"I'm making it pretty," Meg giggled before she ran off to let Kimiko discover the array of designs and pictures Meg had decorated her laptop with in Sharpie.

"I am absolutely going to kill her!" Raimundo hollered after another unsuccessful training.

"That girl's puttin' a lot of good talent to waste, if ya ask me," said Clay.

"Yeah, well, no one _did_ ask you," Kimiko snapped. "No one ever asks _you_ anything because we know it'll take about ten minutes for you to incorrectly pronounce the _wrong_ answer!"

"Be quiet! Can't you see that this is tearing us apart?" Omi shouted. "We are supposed to be a team!"

"Right, the _four_ of us are!" said Rai. "Meg is so totally the fifth wheel here!"

A few unpleasant days later, Dojo sensed another Shen Gong Wu and carted the five of them off to America to search the Grand Canyon.

"Oooh, lookit' how big it is," Meg squeaked happily.

Raimundo rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, big like your mouth."

Meg just stuck her tongue out at him behind his back.

As they circled down over the sprawling ravines, Dojo described the Wu to them.

"It's a Shen Gong Wu that comes in two parts. They're called the Backn'Forth Bracelets. If two people wear a bracelet each, they can communicate to each other and they can trade places instantly, no matter where they are."

"That sounds like fun," said Kimiko.

"Yeah, but I can't think of what you'd use it for. It sounds like something for mean pranks. You know, jump off a cliff and then change places real fast?"

Dojo spiraled down to the ground near the long cliff edges and returned to his compact size.

"Okay, kids, start lookin' under rocks."

Meg dashed off to literally start looking under rocks.

"Hey, don't fall off a cliff or nuthin', Kake," Clay warned her.

"Or _bounce_ off a cliff," Kimiko muttered.

"Or get mysteriously pushed…" Rai began, but he stopped short after a warning glare from Omi.

It was late at night and most of the canyon was flooded with shadow, but the temperature had to be up near at least 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Omi held his hands up and sighed in relied as he poured a light stream of water over his head.

"It ain't so bad," Clay said cheerfully, heaving up a massive boulder to glance around quickly.

"Actually, it is," said Rai with an attitude.

Meanwhile, Meg saw what looked an awful lot like a pair of bracelets hanging on a branch just beyond the edge of the canyon.

"I found it, guys, I found it!" she cried out.

They all ignored her.

"Of course, why am I telling _you_?" she muttered to herself.

Meg got down on all fours and reached out with short arms in an attempt to reach the bracelets. She was barely a finger's length away from the Wu. She scooted further over the cliff, focusing only on the bracelets and not on the thin Colorado River surrounded by a wall of gagged rocks hundreds of feet below.

Big surprise: the cliff began to crumble. Meg screamed as she felt the earth loosening under her, and suddenly everything slowed down. She saw the others in the darkness turn a split second before she tumbled down off the cliff and into the shadows.

Meg's powers of Light kicked in and she could see and think in Bullet-Time. She saw the rocks gliding past her, but she also saw the bracelets floating just below her. If she could grab the bracelets, then she could grab onto a rock or root to slow her fall.

"Meg fell!" Kimiko screamed. The four monks and Dojo zipped to the scene of the accident, but Meg was gone.

"Master Fung is never going to forgive us!" Raimundo cried out, pulling at his hair.

"Now we will _never_ become full Dragons!" Omi almost began crying.

"I'll bet she fell on purpose, just to make us suffer!" Kimiko snapped.

"Dojo! Can't you fly down and find her?" Clay asked.

"In these shadows? Are you joking? She's probably already hit the river by now!"

"We can save her! C'mon, you guys! After all we've been through…?"

But Clay was met only by expressions of complete surrender and utter defeat.

"Guys…!" Clay tried to get through to them, but they only moped in their loss.

As _they_ wallowed in self-pity, Meg grabbed the Backn'Forth Bracelets in mid air. She was still, however, too far from the canyon walls to grab hold of anything. She realized that even though she saw everything happening very, very slowly, she was in reality moving very fast. So fast that, when she hit the water, it would probably kill her. If she hit the ground, it would definitely kill her.

Suddenly, she felt a kind of impact. Her sense of time returned to normal and she was sure she had hit the water because she was moving. Though, she wasn't wet.

Jack Spicer had been searching for the Bracelets, too. He assumed that, because the Grand Canyon was around 1,500 years ago, the Wu was probably hidden within the ravine, and _not_ along the surface, where any Japanese tourist with a camera could pick it up.

Flying along with his Heli-pack, legs behind him slightly, Jack put his hands out to check his watch. It was then, at 9:43pm, that Meg, falling at a rate of about a fourth maximum velocity( ), literally fell right into his arms.

The sudden imbalance sent the Heli-pack spinning uncontrollably, spiraling down hundreds of feet. After a few moments of screaming manically, Jack managed to regain an even course.

"What the heck?" he whined. "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

Her eyes shut tight and Jack's Heli-pack straps clutched in her hands, Meg gradually dared to look up.

"I'm Okay," she said, startled. "Did you _save_ me?" she asked, gazing up at Jack with slightly glazed eyes.

"Apparently!" Jack was equally bewildered. "Where did you come from?"

"I was looking for Shen Gong Wu," Meg explained, which was a strange thing to do because she didn't realized that Jack wasn't just a regular person who wouldn't know about Shen Gong Wu, "and I fell."

"You were looking for Wu, too?" Jack asked. "Hey, I recognize you! You're that Dr. Seuss drawing from Kashmir!"

A series of images from Kashmir ran through Meg's head. Suddenly, a name came to her, along with a reputation. In the shadows of the Canyon with only the faintest moonlight, Jack was a particularly imposing villain to encounter for the first time.

"Oh my Gawd! You're Jack Spicer!"

Jack looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, what's it to ya?"

Meg partially curled up in a defensive ball and hid her face, even though it was dark out.

"Please don't hurt me, Mister Spicer! Please don't drop me either! I'm fragile! Go get the Xiaolin Monks! They're the ones you want! They've got all the Shen Gong Wu! They're right up there!" Then, she added quietly after a pause. "Don't hurt me!"

Jack, needless to say, enjoyed the respect.

"Uh…That's right! You're at my mercy now! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't drop you right now!"

"I'll do all your laundry and dishes and clean up after any pets you have for the rest of my life!" Meg screamed at the top of her lungs, clutching his collar desperately.

There was a pause as Jack drifted along, the only sound the hum of the Heli-pack engine. The fact that no one heard her screams echoing over and over through the canyon in the dead of night is a detail still pondered to this day.

"Sounds good to me!" he laughed after a moment. "No- wait! I have a better idea! You have to…um...Join the Heylin side and never fight for the side of good ever again!"

Meg tossed her dreads casually and put her hand on Jack's shoulder.

"Hey, I've got _no problem_ with that! Fighting for 'good' is boring, anyway!" she laughed.

"Cool!" exclaimed Jack. This was an infinitely better response than he was expecting. He descended to the canyon floor, where the SMART bot stood waiting.

"Do they know you fell?" Jack asked, pushing a remote-garage-door-opener type button that opened the black blast shield.

"Yeah," Meg sighed as he set her down on the broad nose of the bot.

"And they didn't even come after you?"

"Naw. I wouldn't expect them to. They hate me."

"Well, if we see them," said Jack, "let's tell 'em your dead."

"Um, you can tell them that. I'll hide."

"Yeah. That's what I meant."

Though there was only one seat in the SMART, there was a small storage space immediately behind that seat, presumably for backpacks or suitcases. Meg fit in the spot quite nicely.

"Let's give your Xiaolin loser friends a good ol' SMART bot _So Long, Suckers_!" Jack cackled, firing up the bot's boosters. In a few moments, with its wings expanded, the bot went shooting up out of the canyon and blazed a searchlight down to find the monks.

"There they are!" Jack declared. He flipped a switch and a couple of turret machine guns unfolded . He saw the monks change to their Dragon forms and take to the sky.

"What did you say your name was?" Jack asked over his shoulder.

"I'm Nutmeg Kake, but you can call me Meg!"

"All right, Meg! Hand me those Bracelets!"

Again, Jack broadcast his voice from the bot as the Dragons came flying at him in storms of earth, water, wind, and fire.

"Ha-ha! Take _that_, Suckers! I've already got two Shen Gong Wu with this thing and not _one_ showdown! I guess that old dragon of yours is just TOO SLOW!" He emptied a few rounds of ammo, but the bullets had no effect on their elemental dragon forms. The Dragons tried to attack the SMART, but, with the machine's computer in control of the flight path, it dodged and weaved through every one of their attacks.

"By the way," he began one last taunt, "I saw that little Dread Head monk fall off a cliff! Good job, morons! The four of you couldn't keep one little kid from falling to his death? Wow!"

"You saw Meg?" Clay demanded, nearly smashing into the bot.

"Meg? It was a girl? That's a shame! Well, so long, suckers! _I_ got the Backn'Forth Bracelets!"

Pushing up on a lever, Jack put the SMART up the equivalent of four gears and blasted off, putting miles between himself and the monks in about ten seconds.

"Cool," Meg said, meekly peeking out from behind the driver's seat. "You lie well," she completed him.

Jack shrugged with fake modestly.

"Any world-conqueror to-be has to be a good liar. I'm a natural."

"World-conqueror?" Meg repeated.

"Yeah. I, Jack Spicer, Master of Evil, am going to take over the world!"

Meg thought about this for a moment.

"When you do, can you take "The Weakest Link" off the air?"

"Hell, that's like the first thing I was planning on doing!"

(No one could possibly reach anything even near a _tenth_ of maximum velocity after falling only about 100 feet…Except Nutmeg Kake, perhaps.)


	9. One Damn Amazing Robot

Chapter 9. One Damn Amazing Robot

About two weeks and at least 43 hours of _Super Smash Brothers Melee_ after Jack delivered Meg to the Heylin side, a Jack Bot approached its master with a message.

"Sir! A small convoy of cargo helicopters are requesting permission to land their shipment in the backyard!"

Jack jumped up from the video games.

"What? What are you talking about?" He grabbed his coat and goggles from a waiting Jack Bot and started for the door. "C'mon, Meg. Let's find out what's going on."

"Okie Dokie!" said Meg, jumping to her feet and leaving Princess Peach and Gannondorf to stare at each other blankly.

Dashing up the stairs and out the back door to the Spicer Mansion's massive lawn, Jack looked up to see four massive helicopters toting a crate easily half the length and equal the height of the mansion. Jack started up his Heli-pack and, fighting against the overwhelming force of the copter blades, he went straight to a cockpit window for a word with the pilot.

"What the hell is this?" Jack screamed over the roar of the engines and blades.

Down on the ground, Meg came through the back door and just stared at the gigantic crate, mouth agape.

"Holy crap!"

It only took about ten minutes for the well-trained men in brown to land the crate and unbuckle the cables and chains latching it to the helicopters. Standing on top of the crate, Jack signed for the package on one of those electronic clipboards. Once he handed it back to the last deliveryman, the man handed him a crowbar, bid him Good Luck, and scurried up the last rope after the others. As the helicopters titled off and flew away in synchronization, Meg bounced up in one mighty bound onto the top of the crate.

"What _is_ this?" Meg asked.

Jack chuckled to himself quietly, wringing the crowbar in his hands.

"It's my key to finally defeating the Xiaolin monks, once and for all!"

"Really? What does it do?"

Jack raised one eyebrow. He actually had no idea whatsoever as to just _what_ the thing did.

"It's a surprise," he explained. A number of Jack Bots came flooding out of the mansion to begin disassembling the crate. "I'd tell you, but I don't want to say anything out loud when we don't know if we're being watched."

Meg nodded knowingly.

"I see. And, so, when do we get to use it?"

Jack gave an evil grin as his Jack Bots popped the first bolts out of the crate.

"Once the next Shen Gong Wu reveals itself. Ooh, then they'll be in trouble!"

That same evening, circumstances neared bloodshed at the Xiaolin Temple. The four almost-Dragons were at each other's throats.

"This is all your fault!"

"How is it my fault? You're the one who pushed her way too hard!"

"What about all that, like, Girl Bonding stuff?"

"Will you two shut up? It's this kind'a stuff that set such a bad example in the first place!"

"Set a bad example? For what?"

"You mean t'tell me that Fire and Wind here couldn't'a just lit up the canyon and flown down after 'er?"

"It was too late by then!"

"Denial! Total denial! You just didn't _want_ to save her!"

The whole group received this last comment- it doesn't matter who said any of this- with total silence.

"That's a terrible thing to say," Kimiko muttered quietly.

"Well," Clay gasped, but he didn't finish his thought.

"She might be okay," Omi said quietly with a shrug.

"Not likely," Rai retorted, sticking his nose in the air.

"What amazes me," Clay began as he backed away from the group, "is how Jack Spicer spotted 'er fallin' in the middle of the night."

The other three exchanged glances.

"That is a good point," said Omi, raising one eyebrow.

The next three days were quiet and melancholy at the temple. As each monk reviewed the mistakes he or she would or wouldn't admit to having made, Master Fung had produced for them a list of new disciplinary guidelines. They were also about to take Dojo off to Meg's hometown in Great Britain to apologize profusely in person to her parents. Their horrendous trip was cancelled, though, when Dojo had a Shen Gong Wu melt down.

The dragon when zipping through the temple, writhing like an agonized worm.

"Crimson-Red alert! Code thirty two! Move! Move! Move! This one is a whopper! It hurts! It hurts!"

"Dojo!" Kimiko exclaimed at his discomfort.

"No time to talk! No time to do your hair! No time at all! Quick!" Dojo grew to his traveling size and, once the four were aboard, he ripped off straight as a bullet, south.

The monks clung desperately, nearly pulling up scales in their aspiration to hold on.

"Where are we going?" Omi called, but Dojo was too focused on flying to answer. Kimiko pulled her GPS out of her pocket and had to fight to keep it from flying away. Clay had his hat pulled down tight over his head and all his bangs blown back.

"We're headed towards Taiwan," Kimiko said, looking at the map on the little screen.

"_That_ is bad," Omi said over his shoulder. "Taiwan has been nothing but a great big problem for the longest time."

In a few minutes, the ocean came into view, along with the distant island of Taiwan. There were battleships docked in the Chinese ports and jets ready on the aircraft carriers.

The chilly weather and overcast skies suggested rain, but no one noticed. As they came over the water, Dojo began to dive downwards, straight towards the water.

"Okay, Omi! You and me are going for a swim! The rest of you fly and keep an eye out for Jack or Wuya. You can be sure they won't dare pass up THIS one!"

Fire, Earth, and Wind jumped from Dojo and took to the air as their Dragon elements. Omi held onto Dojo's mane and, as the watery form of a dragon surrounded him, Dojo pierced through the surface of the water and brought him straight down. Through the murk, Omi spotted the headlights of the SMART bot striving downwards as well.

Then, Omi spotted what Dojo was heading for. Glowing in the sand, it looked like a fancy calligraphy brush.

Overtaking Dojo, Omi sped down with his Dragon's Blood move and sliced through the water towards the Shen Gong Wu. Just as he placed his pointy little fingers on it amid the sand, a metal claw reached out and took hold, too. Omi looked up to see the glare of Jack Spicer's goggles through the black blast shield of his SMART bot.

_This time_, Omi thought_, we will destroy that robot!_

Each tightening his grip on the Wu, they spiraled back to the surface, the light gradually increasing as they rose. When they burst from the water, the pen glowing fiercely, Jack made his challenge.

"Omi! I challenge you and the other monks to a Xiaolin Showdown, Chase Young style!"

"What are you talking about, Jack?" Omi demanded. "That is not any kind of Showdown!"

"It is now!" Jack exclaimed, raising the blast shield. "If Chase can challenge you to a Showdown where something other than Wu is wagered, then so can I!"

The other three Dragons came down and hovered alongside Omi before the SMART bot.

"Fine! What is your wager, Jack? We are not afraid of your robot! That thing is old cap now!"

"Old hat," Rai put in quickly.

"The game is Elimination for the Master Pen! The four of you against me and my robot! I have to eliminate one of you at a time to move on to the next round, but you only have to beat the bot! If I win, you all have to swear that you'll never go in search, or send anyone else in search for you, of another new Shen Gong Wu!"

"What?" Raimundo exclaimed. "We almost have them all, anyway!"

"Deal! And, if we win," said Omi, "you must give up your evil ways forever, Jack Spicer, and go back to High School!"

Jack cringed at the mention of the place.

"Oh, it's a deal, Cue Ball! You're going down!"

"Xiaolin Showdown!"

The Master Pen escaped and flew off to draw a massive circle in the air. The world began to change. The water lurched and rose right off the ground. The ground shattered and rose up into the air, revealing a pit of belching fire below. Jack and the monks were transported down to the bottommost arena, the arena of fire. The fire, water, earth, and sky formed four massive, round platforms, with six towering pillars framing the whole battlefield: one pillar for Fire, one for Wind, for Earth, for Water, for Light, and for Metal.

Looking around, the Monks saw Dojo sitting on the sidelines all by himself on a transparent, lucid platform. Directly across from him, beyond the underground field of flames, they saw Chase Young and Wuya standing by, though Chase looked more interested in the oncoming battle than the Shen Gong Wu. There were a few other shadows of villains, some familiar, but others simply big names in their countries of origin.

"I invited a kind of evil entourage to witness the rise of Jack Spicer!" Jack declared, throwing his hands in the air. He hovered in the air with his Heli-pack. He pointed to a third platform, on which Seek Patience stood watching in her pinstripe suite with Jack's mini SMART. Next to her was Meg, hold a little Spicer pennant flag.

"Meg! You're alive!" the monks exclaimed, almost in unison.

"Damn straight! And kicking! Evil is so much more fun, you guys!"

Omi shook his head and the other monks recoiled in shame, but Jack drew their attention back to the matter at hand.

"Prepare to meet your fates, Xiaolin Dragons! Gong Yi Tempi!"

Something stirred in the fires behind Jack. A massive form rose to meet them, glowing red from the intense heat. Jack backed up against it as a round hatch opened to let him in. The machine towered over them, the fire shimmering on its black armor and the screech of gears slicing through the air.

"Holy…" Clay muttered, staring at the machine.

"What _is_ that?" Kimiko cried out.

Jack broadcast his new, infinitely improved, evil laugh.

"Welcome to the Taiwan Straight, and to your worst nightmare! Meet the Element SMART!"

The new robot was unlike anything any of them had ever seen before. It had an oval shaped torso with two arms, two legs, and a small, tapered tail for balance. It hovered easily with a pair of massive turbines mounted firmly on its back, and directed itself with similar, smaller turbines on its arms and legs. The machinery in its limbs were clearly designed for strength, but it otherwise didn't appear to be armed.

"Element SMART?" Raimundo repeated.

"That's right, Rai!" Jack laughed. As he spoke, Patience whispered the explanation at the same time. "Water extinguishes Fire! Fire burns the Earth! Earth halts the Wind, and," by now, Chase Young, too, recited the ancient lore, "Wind evaporates Water! On your guard, Dragons, and prepare to die!"


	10. Understand the Elements

Chapter 10. Four, Three, Two, One...

Fire, Earth, Water, Wind- Battle for the Core

The Element SMART rushed at the Dragons, parting the fire below it as it moved. The monks whipped around to try to encircle the E.SMART, their sinuous tails trailing after them.

"We must find a weak spot!" Omi cried out, barely audible over the roaring flames and thunderous machine. "Dragon's Blood!"

The watery dragon around Omi became denser and its arms developed solidity. In a rushing blizzard of hail and ice, Omi shot towards the E.SMART's body to try to pierce the armor. The turbines on the bot's arms activated, however, and blasted him back with a whirling torrent of hot air. When this happened, the E.SMART was thrust forward towards Clay.

"Fire burns the Earth!" Jack laughed manically, though no one could see him. The bot raised its arms and sucked up the fires from the battle filed in a hell-storm tornado through its turbines.

"Dragon's Talons!" Clay cried out. At this whim, the dragon around him became an armor of solid rock, with scales ranging from granite to diamond. At first, the fire only splattered off the rock, forced to stray away from its target by Raimundo's Dragon's Wings move.

Undiscouraged, the E.SMART rolled to the side as Clay's crushing punch nearly crippled the bot's left arm.

"It responds too fast to our moves," Kimiko shouted. "Dragon's Breath!" The shadow of a fiery dragon became a steady burn around her and she rushed at the E.SMART.

"We have to use the Dragon Deity Formation!" Raimundo said, trying to avoid getting sucked into the E.SMART's turbines.

"No!" Omi protested. "We must stay split up and give it as many different targets to focus on at once as we can!"

Suddenly the E.SMART's stubby little tail lengthened considerably and sliced through the air, snapping right into Kimiko. In the moments before she recovered, the bot reached out and grabbed the twisting fires of her dragon embodiment.

In a fit of the fires of rage, Kimiko conjured up a massive, swirling sphere of fire, like an explosion forbidden to expand. The bot's hand started to glow red slightly, but not before it used the three other turbines on its arm and legs to pull in the fires and blast it out in a stream of white, blue, and orange- straight at the Dragon of Earth.

"Kimiko!" Raimundo screamed. "Stop! Stop! It's using you!"

But, under the deafening roar of the flames, she couldn't possibly hear him.

Omi rushed forwards, bent on pouring water over the flames.

"Wait!" Clay shouted, but not soon enough. The stone dragon was glowing red, pressed to the very edge of the battlefield. When Omi poured a small sea of water Kimiko's fire, he also doused Clay's stone.

Some of the rock shattered, some had already melted away under the fire, and some of it hardened only to shatter away at a flick from the E.SMART's talon.

"Clay!" Kimiko screamed when she saw what had happened, letting her fire subside.

"Oh, man!" Raimundo lamented.

There was a flash and Clay was on the side lines with Dojo, lying with the backs of his hands and arms badly burned.

"You Okay, Clay?" Dojo pleaded, giving him a gentle push. Clay just moaned.

Meg jumped up and down on the sideline, waving her Jack pennant.

"Go Jack! Go Jack! Woo- woo- woo!" She did a little dance, much to Patience's distaste. On the international villains' sideline, Chase looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow to see the others placing sickeningly substantial bets on the fight.

The fires went out and turned into darkness. All present were raised from the first arena to the second, the cracked and crumbing battlefield of Earth.

Fire, Water, Wind- Battle for the Land

The platform was crumbling along the edges, and the whole field was sprinkled with sharp, rising crags and bubbling lava spots. Kimiko glanced at Rai and saw him gulp nervously.

"Earth halts the Wind," he muttered.

The E.SMART landed heavily on the platform and made the whole thing rumble and tilt dangerously.

"Maybe, but Fire still burns the Earth," Kimiko reminded him, building up the Fire Dragon around her again. "We'll keep an eye out for ya, Rai."

Meg waved her arms from the sidelines.

"Ha ha! Raimundo needs his little girl friend to protect him!"

Rai glared at her fiercely, but he had little time to contemplate his grudge. The E.SMART reached out with both fore-talons and hefted up two massive chunks of earth.

"Incoming!"

The three Dragons split in different directions as one of the huge slabs of stone cut into the arena like a spearhead. Magma spewed from the gash like blood filling a wound.

The E.SMART broke the other piece of earth into two smaller, more manageable weapons. At first, Jack tried to swat the encircling Dragons out of the air like bugs.

"Jack, you fool," Patience muttered, holding the bridge of her nose.

"C'mon, Jack!" Wuya screamed in her slightly hoarse voice. "Squish them!"

The Dragons easily dodged the E.SMART's vain attacks, but they couldn't yet make any kind of offensive move until they found a weakness.

"If Metal is an element," said Omi, "then what beats _that_?"

"I don't know, but I have a pretty good idea," Kimiko said, noticing the pools of lava all around. She flew down and hovered over one while Rai and Omi kept Jack distracted. Holding out her arms, the lava began to swirl around and rise up in a thick spiral. Keeping the rock molten with her fire, Kim created a jet of lava that, with a wave of her arm, she launched straight at the E.SMART's core body.

"Maybe Fire and Earth _combined_ will beat Metal!" she explained as the boiling rock smashed into the bot's body, hardening in places and clogging up at least one turbine.

"All right, Kimiko!" Raimundo exclaimed, giving her the thumbs-up.

There was a screaming of gears from within the bot's right upper arm as it tried to move while locked in place by the hardened rock.

"Crap!" Jack exclaimed, pushing a number of buttons on the control board, all to little avail. Suddenly, inspiration came to him. "Time to play rough!"

Lifting the cover over one of three little red buttons, he ordered the launch of his first missile. It shot out from the bot's free arm and immediately chased after Omi. The Water Dragon easily flew much faster than the missile, taking it on a course around and around the E.SMART. Kimiko rose up and melted a small tunnel through the rock on the bot, between its stuck arm and torso.

"Through here, Omi!" she called out. Omi saw the small clearance of the hole and whipped straight through, the missile in tow, dousing the rock in an explosion of water at the dragon shape slipped through. The missile was to large for the hole, jammed right into it, and detonated on the spot.

"Ha!" Kimiko cried triumphantly. "Take that!"

"Thanks for the assistance, Kimiko," Jack laughed. The rock, already softened slightly by Omi's water, cracked and shattered away from the bot's body under the force of the explosion. "You didn't think a tiny little tracking missile like that could put a dent in _this_ thing, did you?"

A drill, like the one of the Mini SMART, rose up from the top of the E.SMART's torso and, dropping down on all fours, Jack tunneled down into the arena. Lava spewed up and filled the hole he made. It swallowed the bottom talons as the bot went deeper into the platform. Everyone watching wondered if Jack would tunnel straight through the platform, or if he was trying to break the whole thing apart.

There wasn't a sound for at least a minute. The Dragons hovered tentatively over the still-crumbling and cracking battlefield, awaiting Jack's next move.

"What is his doing?" Wuya hissed over her shoulder at Chase.

"Patience," he muttered with his arms crossed.

"What?" the dentist with above namesake asked from the near bystander platform.

Raimundo was getting nervous.

"I don't mean to sound like I think Jack has a chance," he said to Omi and Kim, "but that robot it out of control, and just _look_ at what he did to Clay. Clay, man! The kid's a mini Mount Fuji!"

"Don't worry, Rai," Kimiko assured him. "We won't let…"

Suddenly, a geyser of magma blasted up from the center of the platform, followed by a glowing hot E.SMART.

"Surprise, surprise!" they heard Jack laugh. Using the turbines on its arm, the bot directed the lava flow straight at Raimundo. Rai tried to hold it back with a rush of air, but he didn't have enough time and the lava poured right over him.

"Raimundo!" Omi screamed. He flew for him and drenched the lava all the way to the source, the gaping crack, which Jack had created.

"No, wait!" Kimiko cried out, but it was too late. A boulder of hardened rock dropped to the platform, dangerously close to the crumbling edge.

"Go back to your Brazilian alcohol-powered Volkswagen Beatles!" Jack taunted, laughing manically. There was a tornado of wind whipping around the boulder, powered from within the rock. The winds began to slow at an alarming rate and, once they stopped, the rock platform shattered and the two remaining Dragons proceeded to the next round.

The rock vanished and appeared on the other side of Dojo. It crumbled and dropped Raimundo, burned, bruised, and other wise broken but at least breathing beside Clay.

"Two down, two to go!" Jack laughed as he, Omi, and Kimiko ascended to the Water arena.

Fire, Water- Battle for the Seas

"Oh, this is going to be _way_ too easy," Jack laughed. "I've got a small saltwater sea to use to take out the _Fire_ Dragon!"

"Do not speak so swiftly, Jack Spicer," Omi warned. "This is also my element, so I am strongest here! Dragon's Blood!"

"Dragon's Breath!"

Kim and Omi, rather than again search the bot for the weak spot they now assumed it didn't have, backed off and waited to see what Jack would do.

"Aww! Are the two tiniest monks scared of the big bad robot?" Jack teased sarcastically.

"I can't handle this kid," Kimiko muttered flatly.

Spreading the water below it under the force of its engines, the E.SMART hovered tentatively. Both sides took a moment to consider their next move and, though it really wasn't _that_ much time without action, Meg was throwing a conniption on the sidelines.

"Hurry up, Jack! You can squash them in about TWO SECONDS! Pick up the pace! Put your rear into gear! C'mon!"

"You haven't been watching all this in Bullet Time, have you?" Patience asked with one eyebrow raised.

"Of course not! I'm just having a wicked case of A.D.H.D right now!"

Then, the monks made their move.

Kimiko expanded the Fire Dragon around her, spreading its arms and lengthening its tail. She began to fly around the disk of water, resting hundreds of feet above the earth.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Jack demanded. Kimiko didn't answer. Omi concentrated and turned his Water Dragon into an Ice Dragon.

"If you plan to use water to defeat fire, Jack Spicer," Omi told him, "then we will make sure there is not a single drop of water for you to use!"

Inside the cockpit, Jack almost panicked.

"Grab her! Grab her!" Jack ordered the computer, pressing some buttons high up on the panel. "Knock her into the water! Get the water before it all evaporates!"

The E.SMART dipped forward and flew after the blazing Kimiko, but torpedoes of ice dropped down to impede him every yard of the way. Weaving between whistling pillars of ice, Jack launched two more heat-seeking missiles after Kimiko. The body of the fiery dragon acted like the perfect shield, the intense conditions of its heated body detonating the missiles before they even reached her.

"I hope you brought the snacks," Dojo muttered to Clay and Raimundo, recovered somewhat.

"Why's that?" Clay asked slowly.

"Because we're about to come into a small fortune in salt!"

Sure enough, the tremendous white and blue fires of Kimiko's dragon dried up the arena before the E.SMART could catch her. Nothing but a slab of about three feet of slightly damp salt remained, scorched back in some places by the whipping motion of her sinuous body.

"For the love of God!" Jack snapped. He honestly had no idea where he was going to get the water he needed to beat Kimiko.

"Hey, you guys, can we call, like, a timeout or something?"

"Yeah right!" Kimiko laughed. "We know you aren't smart enough to have built that robot on your own, so there's no way we're going to let you take pointers from someone who actually _knows_ what they're doing!"

"Aw, c'mon!" Jack whined a little.

"Composure, Jack!" Patience shouted up at him.

"Yeah! Whiners aren't winners!" Meg added, jumping up and down.

When Meg said this, Chase couldn't help but grin a little.

"That explains Jack in a nutshell."

Jack landed the E.SMART of the salt field and looked up at the two hovering monks.

"Well, whatever! This thing can still crush you whether I take your elements into consideration or not!"

"Dragon's Blood!"

Omi sent down a hail of razor sharp icicles on the bot, aiming for its turbines. The bots computer reacted fast enough to deflect all the icicles as they came, but some of the ice managed to force the bot back a few steps and dent its armor in places.

As the robot's computer handled the onslaught, Jack noticed something about the icicles. Leaning close to the blast shield, he looked down at the salt where the ice buried itself. Sitting in so much salt, the ice began to melt quite quickly.

"Cha-ching," Jack said quietly. "I: am a genius!"

He switched the computer's motivation to offensive mode and set the bot's turbines to run on Low.

The E.SMART knocked some of the iceless back towards Omi now, but with little effect.

"Gimme all ya got, Tether Ball!"

Jack successfully incited an increased barrage of ice, which developed into a respectable ice storm.

"That armor is too strong, Omi," said Kimiko, who didn't want to use her fire for fear of melting the ice, "and its reflexes are too quick! We need to take it by surprise somehow."

"Surprise!" they heard Jack yell. The E.SMART's turbines suddenly cranked up and started to suck up all the salt around it. It launched salt straight up, drying it more in the process. The bot left its feet and began to sweep over the salt field, filling the air with a cloud of salt that it kept perpetually aloft.

"Ack!" Kimiko choked a little. "That tastes awful! That's worse than regular salt!"

Whipped around at high speeds and in such great quantity, the salt both embedded itself in some of the stronger masses of Omi's ice and ate away at the smaller pieces. The bot reached out, grabbed the largest icicle, and held it like a club.

"Have you ever put salt on your arm and then pressed ice into it? Trust me, it kills!"

"You must have been really bored," Kimiko pointed out sarcastically.

Without comment, the E. SMART took to the air for the last two monks. First, it directed a strong jet of solid salt at Omi, some of which got in his eyes once it burned through the glassy shell of his dragon. Then, it took a swing at Kimiko with the giant ice club.

"It's just going to melt," Kimiko reminded him.

"Good!" Jack laughed as the bot redirected the melted water back at Kimiko. Steam erupted in a foggy haze before it even reached Kimiko, making visibility even worse.

"Kimiko! Where are you?" Omi cried out. She and Jack could see his dots through the salt and steam, but Kimiko vanished once she put out her Dragon to stop the ice from melting.

"Not much of a choice, is there, Kimiko?" Jack laughed. "Stay a dragon: I wash you away! Don't stay a dragon: I step on you! Muahahahahaha!"

Kimiko's plan was simple: drop down to the salt field and jump up on the E.SMART's talon. From there, she could wait for inspiration as she looked for a way to get inside the bot and pull Jack out. It didn't look to her like the kind of machine that could touch its toes.

As she dropped down, however, the bot's reaction time proved to again be its most useful feature. One giant arm shot out and snatched her right out of the air between three tapered claws.

Pivoting in a full half-circle, still obscuring almost everything in salt, the bot literally flicked Kimiko to the mountain of ice that had built up where the E.SMART had been standing during Omi's ice storm.

Rather than break her back on a razor sharp collage of salty, stinging ice, Kimiko enshrouded herself in protective shell of fire. With the salt and fire, most of the ice melted away in moments, leaving Kimiko in a wading pool.

"Aw, crud."

Though Omi had spotted Kimiko's shield through the salt storm, he couldn't navigate effectively at all once it went out again.

Using one turbine to absorb the water and another to blast it back down again, the E.SMART dumped thousands of pounds of pressure in water on Kimiko's fire-shield. With most of its energy into this effort, the bot ended the salt storm. It only took a few more moments before the overwhelming strain on Kimiko became too much. Her shield broke and she was essentially flushed out of the showdown.

Kimiko found herself sitting on the sidelines with Dojo, Raimundo, and Clay, gagging on water a little, but still feeling thirsty.

Water- Battle for the Sky

The salt field broke in half. Omi and Jack rose with their onlookers to the last stage of the showdown. There was no platform here, just thousands of feet of open air dropping down below and the reaches of outer space rising above, all surrounded by the six pillars of the elements.

"One more to go, Jack!" Wuya cheered him on. "Dry him up like a raisin!"

"Is anyone surprised that Jupiter's missing satellite here is the last one standing?" muttered one of the undistinguished villains behind her.

Clearing the last of the salt from its turbines, the E.SMART easily hovered level with Omi's Water Dragon.

"You're going _down_, Pac Man!" Jack declared. "And when you do, the world will be mine for the taking! Boo-yeah!"

"Refrain from registering your babes prior to their surfacing!"

Dead silence.

"That was a dusey," Dojo muttered.

Meg tugged on Patience's pant leg.

"_What_ did he just say?"

"Don't count your chicks before they hatch…" Patience translated, a bit awestruck as she considered just how much had been lost to fourth-rate translation.

"Just for that," said Jack flatly, "I'm going to make you suffer!"

"Unlikely!" Omi retorted. "We may be in the Wind arena, but there's nothing in that phrase of yours telling what beats _ice_! Dragon's Blood!" The water around Omi hardened and crystallized, shattering Omi's image and reflecting a warped picture of the E.SMART and the pillars on every surface of its body.

The E.SMART and the Ice Dragon smashed into each other, splintering ice and joggling Jack violently. The E.SMART unleashed missiles, though the heat-seeking devices were useless against Omi.

On the side, Patience opened up an umbrella and watched the battle as though she was doing nothing unusual whatsoever.

"What's that for?" Meg asked.

"Remember what the weather looked like when we first got here? And remember when Kimiko evaporated all that water in the last battle? Where do you think all that water _went_?"

The others on the sides overheard his comment and glanced at the skies. The sky, however, was all around them. Dark clouds laden with water were gathered close now, and they could see flashes of thunder shivering though the gray. Then, the rain began to pour. Though most of it feel below them, the damp air and freezing winds still soaked them and the dark clouds still blocked out the sunlight.

The E.SMART had one bottom talon completely encased in ice, and Jack detonated a missile to free another. Omi tried to fill its turbines with ice, but he couldn't get behind the bot fast enough and the blades always shredded anything he did manage to get back there.

"Die, Cheeseball, die!" Spicer shouted from within his cockpit, furiously launching the remainder of his missiles, but they only detonated on the armor of ice and did no damage.

"This is going to have a messy ending," Wuya predicted.

"You can do it, Omi," Clay and the other monks quietly cheered him on from the side.

The Ice Dragon rushed forward and sunk its icicle teeth into the E.SMART's shoulder joint, the first time in the showdown that something had penetrated the armor. The very tip of the tooth actually entered the cockpit, causing a small shower of sparks.

The computer's voice suddenly came on, noticeably louder than usual.

"Nuclear detonation in two minutes," it informed Jack.

"WHAT? NUCLEAR DETONATION! I didn't ask for that! Computer! Cancel detonation!"

"System malfunction. Nuclear Detonation in one minute and fifty four seconds."

Everyone heard the alarming report.

"Nuclear detonation?" Meg repeated. "There's a nuclear bomb on that thing?"

Patience cringed and ran her hands through her hair.

"Well, yes. It's a small warhead, but…I don't know how the computer came to that conclusion…I don't know how Omi bit through my armor!" Patience climbed up into the Mini SMART and started it.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Meg demanded.

"I just need to get the professional opinion of they who know much more about showdowns than I do," she explained, not bothering to lower the blast shield. Once its wings extended, Patience flew the bot over the platform that carried the world's most prominent villain spectators.

"Chase! Wuya!" Patience shouted down from the diver's seat. "Those pillars may have held back the salt storm, but can they hold the force of the blast if that nuke goes off?"

"You're asking us?" Wuya exclaimed. "How should we know?"

"You fought in the _first_ showdown ever, Wuya! You've got to know!"

Chase looked from Wuya to Patience slowly.

"Why do you care? If the pillars can't contain the blast, you can still fly off."

"Sure, but World War Three will break out if a NUCLEAR WEAPON goes off in the Taiwan Straight!"

"Nuclear Detonation in sixty seconds."

Chase, his arms crossed, tapped his fingers pensively for a moment.

"Well, there's one good way to find out," he said calmly. Abruptly, he looked over his shoulder and snatched the nearest villain by his stiff collar. But he could react, Chase threw him off the platform and straight towards the pillars. He smashed into an invisible barrier between the Fire and Earth columns. Like a piece of thrown food, he stuck for a moment before peeling away and plummeting out of sight.

"But will it stop a nuke?" Patience repeated.

"It should," said Chase. "I threw him pretty hard. But, I can test it again, if you like." He looked over his shoulder to see that all the other villains had seen enough of the battle and taken their leave. Wuya was still here, but she was noticeably father away.

"I think you just like throwing people," the dentist muttered.

Patience turned her attention to Jack.

"Jack! This is the sky arena! Fly UP and lose the bomb in space!"

"What if it explodes inside the bot?" Jack screamed. "I can't get blown up now!"

"Don't TALK, Jack! Just go! Go, go, go!"

Jack was about to direct the bot on a course with outer space, _Nuclear Detonation in thirty seconds,_ when an idea came to him. Surely, he would never have enough time to fly up, drop the bomb, and fly back down fast enough that he could escape the _falling_ bomb. So, he released the bomb right there, and then flew up.

"Fly up, Omi! Fly up!" the monks on the sidelines screamed. "Get away from the blast!"

"You couldn't handle _salt_, kid!" Dojo snapped. "There's no way you can handle a nuke!"

"Jack, you idiot! How do you expect to take over the world when…" Patience began, holding her head in her hands.

"You almost sound like you're rooting _for_ the world," Chase commented. "Because countries fighting against each other will only be that much weaker when you come along."

Patience looked up and watched the nuke drift down through the clouds and out of sight.

"That's a very good point," she said quietly.

Omi, meanwhile, was clearly considering as fast as his brain could compute whether it was right to fly away, save his life, and allow the bomb to detonate, or if he should fly after it and risk his life to somehow stop it from going off.

"We're over open water, Omi! It won't hurt anyone out here!" Kimiko shouted.

"You can do a lot more good _alive_!" Dojo reminded him.

"Nuclear Detonation in ten seconds," Jack heard as he neared the edge of earth's atmosphere.

Omi looked to the sky, into the endless reach of the pillars, and down at the hole the bomb made when it passed through the clouds.

"Go ahead, Omi," said Chase in a cruel voice. Patience and Wuya could tell he was essentially saying _I dare you to blow yourself up._

Ultimately, Omi shook the thought out of his head and left the bomb.

_Nuclear Detonation in five, four, three…_

Omi flew up the tunnel of the pillars as fast as he could, his icy form melting back to water as he did so.

_Two, one…_

Everyone cringed slightly except Chase.

_Detonation_.

They were met with only silence. Meg looked around sharply, clearly viewing the event in Bullet Time. Dojo and the three monks held their breaths.

Patience took a deep, angry sigh.

"I don't even want to see the price on the receipt," she muttered. "They sold me a _DUD_?"

It looked like a tremble of thunder at first, until it filled the battlefield with a blinding light. Only after the light did the deafening sound reach them. Everyone covered their ears and ducked away slightly as the explosion erupted up the pipe formed by the pillars. In a truly unique incident, all the power of a nuclear bomb was compressed into narrow space, with no place to go other than _up_.

Radioactive fire rushed up through the pillars like hell unleashed. The heat, light, and sound, though contained, was still too much. Because the force of the explosion condensed, it all lasted longer than usual. For what seemed like an eternity, the fire rushed up, the storm clouds ripped and spewed lightning, and the sound of a thousand shrieking steam engines made the very atmosphere shake.

Mercifully, the contained hell eventually began to subside. The pillars were packed with smoke and wisps of wandering fire.

Then, just as it had begun, the pillars vanished. The Shen Gong Wu known as the Master Pen appeared and waited for the victor to claim it. In a flash of light, all returned to land, a field in southern China. They could see the tower of smoke formed by the showdown fading out miles away. Wuya had fallen on her rear, as had Meg, and Dojo was inside Clay's hat. Patience opened the Mini SMART's blast shield and peeked out, seeing the E.SMART in a heap on the ground. Chase was apparently the only living thing among them that had kept up on his own two feet.

When neither Omi nor Jack appeared to take the Master Pen after a few moments, Chase asked what they were all thinking.

"Who won? Or, rather, who lost?"


	11. Part Two: Taking Over the World

**PART TWO**

**"World Domination, Baby!" **

* * *

Chapter 11. The First Steps

It was still raining where the group returned from the showdown. The sky was still dark, but the thunder was far in the distance.

"Jack! Jack!" Meg went bouncing over the collapsed body of the E.SMART to search for Jack. She sprayed water from her dreads with every bounce and splattered it on the ground wherever she landed.

"Where's Omi?" Kimiko asked, at last managing to get to her feet. Dojo scooted through the debris, though Rai and Clay were still too weak to get up.

Wuya inspected the waiting Master Pen greedily.

"So, if they were both nuked to a fine dust, who's going to take the Shen Gong Wu?" she asked slyly.

Patience was way ahead of her.

"Well, I think I'll just assume they are dust and take this one for myself!" she said, lunging forward in the Mini SMART. "Because, unlike you, Wuya, I'm not afraid of Chase." She snatched the Master Pen out of the air and took her seat, getting ready to leave.

"How dare you!" Wuya shrieked, shaking her fist at the SMART.

"…Hey!" A familiar but weak voice called out from the ruin of the E.SMART. "That's _my_ Master Pen!"

"Jack! You're in once piece!" Patience exclaimed, looking back sharply. "Well, consider this my payment for letting you trash the Element SMART."

"What?" Wuya exclaimed. "But, that means…"

Kimiko found Omi, unconscious, near the E.SMART's shoulder, when she heard what Wuya said.

"Jack won?" she muttered. "How?"

A back hatch with explosive bolts on the E.SMART popped off and Jack crawled out. He jumped up after swaying uneasily for a moment and put his hands in the air, touchdown style.

"Victory! Absolute victory, baby! And with the Xiaolin monks out of the way, the age of Jack Spicer's reign of darkness and terror can finally arrive! Woo hoo!"

Meg screeched for joy and ran to give Jack a bear hug.

"My hero!"

"Ow, ow…"

"Think again, Jack," Kimiko snapped. "Just because you beat us, that doesn't mean…"

"Hey, don't ruin the moment! I'm trying to _savor_, here!"

Kimiko just rolled her eyes and dragged Omi over to Raimundo, Clay, and Dojo. Clay was sitting up now, albeit painfully, and Raimundo was coming around.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Clay asked, seeing Omi.

"I think so," Kimiko muttered. "I think finding out he lost to _Jack Spicer_ is going to hurt a lot more than getting physically beat."

"Damn straight!" Jack laughed. "And know what else? Know what else? Now, you guys can never go after a new Shen Gong Wu ever again! Oh yeah- Jack Spicer _owns_! Did ya see _that_, Chase? Chase? Hey, where'd he go?"

"Probably went to throw up," Wuya muttered sarcastically.

"Chase _did_ see me win, right?" Jack checked.

"Yes, yes, Jack," Patience sighed. "Most of south-east Asia and the Philippines saw you win. Now, if you could silence the personal paean, you still have a hell of a long way to go before you even get close to taking over the world. So, I suggest you start now."

Patience pushed a button on her watch and looked to the sky. While traveling-size Dojo gently lifted each monk onto his back, the group noticed small burst of light in the clouds not too far away. The rumble of a sonic boom reached them moments later as the SMART bot approached and slowed to come to a landing in the field. Unlike the Mini SMART, this one needed to run a few steps when it landed, shaking the ground in the process. It turned and walked towards Patience in long, lumbering steps, coming to a rest just a few yards away.

Jack and Meg stared up at the massive robot with mouths agape. The conscious Xiaolin warriors couldn't believe their eyes as Dojo carried them away. Wuya, too, stood impressed.

"That," Patience said to Jack, "is regular SMART."

The SMART had to be at least 30 stories tall. Each step it took was about a quarter mile. The drill on its nose looked like it could tunnel through miles of concrete without a hitch, and its engine was at least three times the size of the whole Mini SMART.

"All the same Stimuli Mirroring Automatic Reaction Technology, only under a hell of a lot more armor. More guns, bigger bombs, it's faster, hold four people instead of just one, and the whole thing is constructed of my own secret metal alloy: one flexible, extreme-heat-and-cold resistant, shock-proof, virtually impenetrable, and all around perfect."

Jack was almost speechless.

"This is too much for one day!" he exclaimed. "First, I beat the monks. Then, I get this amazing giant killer robot. What's next?"

"You don't need braces," Patience told him without missing a beat.

"Oh, yeah!" Jack hollered. "Let's take this thing for a test drive! I wanna blow up a city!"

As Wuya wandered around the SMART's giant talons in inspection, Patience held a forefinger up to remind Jack of a few small details.

"Don't forget, Jack, that you aren't playing games any more. The board won't reset, win or lose, ever again, and people in the real world bear grudges much more violently than you probably realize. I know this portion of your brain hasn't fully developed yet, but you need to plan ahead…"

"What do you mean my brain hasn't developed yet?" Jack snapped back.

"That's not what I said. The pre-frontal lobe in the male brain doesn't fully develop until the age of twenty-five. And you're, what, nineteen? Plus, most teen-agers lack the sufficient capabilities to plan ahead logically and thoroughly…"

"What is this?" Jack interrupted. "I thought you were a dentist, not a brain surgeon!"

"Isn't she smart?" Meg said quietly, gazing up at Jack. "She's my favorite dentist."

"I know this from reading the science pages in the Sunday papers," Patience replied calmly. "Now, as I was saying, you seriously need to plan ahead."

She pushed a button on her watch and the SMART responded. It lowered its massive, somewhat egg-shaped head to the ground and its black blast shield whooshed open. Patience climbed in via walking up the drill nose, while Jack flew in and Meg just bounced.

"Say, Jack," Wuya called up in her sweetest voice. "Now that you've beat the monks and you're on your merry way to take over the world, I just thought you should know that I was on your side _all along_, and that…"

"Take a hike, Wuya! I've so completely outgrown you! You can't contend, witch: _I'm _playin' in the big leagues _now_! And," Jack paused for a moment, considering the effect his words might have, "pass the message on to Chase!" he finished in a laugh.

The blast shield snapped down and the bot started to rise back up. Wuya heard Jack laughing triumphantly and stuck her tongue out at the bot.

"You've made a big mistake, Jack! You're going to regret this!"

The SMART, standing at full height again, turned away from Wuya and scratched up wave of dirt on her. Then, it expanded its massive wings, fired up its engines, and launched with a running start.

As the SMART ascended into the dark clouds and rain pattered on the windshield, Patience brought up a map of the world on the control board's display screen.

"Meg, don't push any buttons," she said without even looking into the back seat. "Jack! Don't push any buttons! Dear God, you two were made…to annoy me. Anyway, Jack, pay attention."

"I'm listening, I'm listening."

"Taking over the world doesn't mean flattening cities and burning villages. If you do that, you'll destroy thousands and thousands of years of priceless treasures, both man-made and natural, and you'll find yourself ruling a worthless planet of several billion pissed-off people."

"Whoa, back up! What are you, some kind of tree-hugger? I wanna blow stuff up! And rein of 'darkness and terror' demands it!"

"If you want to become the ruler of a totally sterile planet and make absolutely _no_ profit off it whatsoever, that's fine by me! But _you're _the dark Evil Villain here and _they_ are the struggling warriors of peace and love, and if you goof off then the story of your life will look an awful lot like a recycled Hollywood screen play."

"…oh…"

"_Anyway_, here's what I think you should do! You need to make yourself the top priority of every military in the world. You have to become such a massive threat that _everyone_ will join forces against you. Believe me, you don't want the Chinese or Russian government saying they'll be your allies, because then you'll have to play by their rules and you'll probably get assassinated a lot faster. You should essentially force the whole world to put aside their differences and focus on _you_. That way, when you crush them all, you'll crush one giant army all at once in an undisputed victory, rather than mulling around in South America trying to track down the last little bits of warring armies that just didn't feel like joining the bulk force to come out and fight you."

Jack tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"You know, that sounds like it's going to take an awful lot of robots. Where are we going to get that many?"

Patience chuckled a bit.

"Jack, can you think of any weapons company that would sell such destructive equipment to a trigger-happy lunatic like you?"

"Lockheed Industries."

"Exactly. Them, and the entire good state of California will send out every last bomb and jet they have as long as we pay up. Of course, we'll just suck all that money right back up after we control every last back account and company stock on the face of the earth!"

This time, the triumphant evil laughing was partaken in, and enjoyed, by all three.

"They're never going to stop us now!" Jack laughed, adjusting his goggles and taking the SMART's controls.

"Damn straight they aren't. After all, _I _have one of the few Shen Gong Wu that even remotely interests me: the Master Pen. Meg," she looked over her shoulder into the back seat, where Meg was toying with her dread locks, "name an object. Any thing I can hold in my hand."

"Um…a Game Boy!"

Patience grinned.

"Watch this, Jack," she said. Pulling on the little arm that would normally draw up ink on a real calligraphy pen, Patience scrolled through a kind of Menu list displayed on the body of the pen, entering deeper and deeper into each category until she came to the Game Boy Color option.

"Master Pen!"

Ink poured from the tip of the pen and solidified in midair. In just a few seconds, the ink changed color and became a real, playable Game Boy, only with no batteries and no game cartridge.

"Cool!" Jack and Meg exclaimed at once. Meg snatched the Game Boy to inspect it.

"It's real!" she said, stunned.

"And that's why every one made such a big deal over getting to it when it first revealed itself," Patience explained. "It's right up there in the top five most powerful and most useful Shen Gong Wu. And now, it's mine. At this point, I can only think of three forces that could possibly stand in our way, and I've already got them figured out," Patience bragged.

"Who?" Meg asked, leaning up from the back seat.

"The U.S.M.C, the Russians, and…"

"The U.S.M.C?" Meg repeated with a quizzical expression.

"The United States Marine Corps, Meg. They have about a thousand mottos on how to destroy things as fast as possible, part of their training is yelling _KILL KILL KILL_, and every one of them is a dangerous combination of homicidal tendencies, faith to their commander, and faith in God. But, as I was saying: The Marines, the Russians, and the Japanese. Well," Patience paused for a moment, "and Chase Young, too, I suppose. But, I don't think even _he_ is bullet proof!"

Jack squinted at something in the distant clouds and pushed a button for the radar system.

"Check it out! Speaking of _not_ bullet proof, it's a Chinese fighter jet!"

"Oh, good!" Meg giggled. "Let's rear-end 'im and get this show on the road!"


	12. The Land of Oil and M16s

Chapter 12. The Land of Oil and M16s

"Check it out, Jack! We're on the news!"

Meg was in the back seat of the SMART with her feet up on the cushioned leather chair beside her, watching the evening news report out of Kazakhstan on one of those PSP-style does-every-thing-except-bake-cookies devices.

"Really? Cool! What are they saying?" Jack replied with a grin.

"How should I know? It's all in Kazakhstanesse! But, they keep playing the clip of the SMART blowing up those fighter jets."

Patience just shook her head slowly.

"All the SMART bots should be awake by now," she said, "so I'm going to signal to the nearest one to come pick me up and get me the hell out of here, Jack. I'm going to go home and send hate-mail to Chase. Actually, no- letter bombs."

Jack gave her a sideways glance of befuddlement. A formation of fighter-jets appeared from the clouds below and raced to engage the bot. The SMART shot all them out of the sky at its own will, and the threat went almost unnoticed by Jack.

"I don't get it," said Jack. "What _is_ this grudge you have against Chase? What did he ever do to you?"

Patience threw her head back and laughed freely at some private joke.

"Oh, Jack. I _could_ try to explain the very long montage of mortal combat and humiliation that is my relation to Chase, but it began almost two decades ago, before Chase even turned evil. Believe me…" she trailed off and looked away, out the window. "That's a whole other FanFic," she muttered quietly.

"What?"

"I didn't say anything."

The second SMART bot approached from the northeast a few moments later, guided entirely on its own. It opened its blast shield and flew alongside Jack's bot, just a few feet below.

"Buckle up, boys and girls," Patience said, getting to her feet and walking behind Meg's seat to the edge of the blast shield.

"Won't you get, like, sucked out?" Meg asked, looking up at Patience upside down. Patience just gave her a sly nod and secured the Master Pen in a safe place.

"Check your e-mail, Jack," Patience said, holding up her watch and pushing a button to open the shield.

With the hiss of the retreating shield, all three of them were instantly subjected to a buffeting. If Meg and Jack hadn't been strapped down, they would have been thrown into the open void of the sky, just like Patience. After about four seconds of a sudden change in pressure, freezing air, and getting pummeled with wind like rag dolls, the shield snapped down again, darkening their view. Jack gave a high-pitched sigh and readjusted his goggles on its forehead. Meg unbuckled as fast as she could and ran to the edge of the window to look for Patience.

Sure enough, Seek free fell _quite _some distance while the other SMART carefully fell along side her trying to match her speed exactly. It had its legs dragging almost over its head, and its engine occasional lit up faintly to give it a boost. Within moments, Patience and her bot were falling at precisely the same speed and she was close enough to pull herself into the cockpit and take her seat.

Jack rolled his eyes and veered the bot in the opposite direction, away from western Russia.

"Huh. _I_ could do that. I'm _not_ the only villain in the world who doesn't have wildly stylish exit plans!" He paused for a moment of self-doubt. "Am I?"

"Well," Meg chuckled. "The Heli-bot isn't exactly James Bond!" Then, she added quickly. "But, you've got the SMART bots now, so you _know_ you're going to get the respect you deserve!"

"That's right!" Jack put his fist in the air. "So, what country should we take over first?"

Meg jumped up and took the co-pilot seat beside Jack.

"Let's go dethrone Fidel Castro!" she cried happily, clasping her hands.

"I don't know," Jack shrugged. "Should we really start off _there?_ I mean, wouldn't Europe be an appropriate starting place?"

"If you're looking for 'appropriate'," Meg said, putting her hands on her hips, "then you might as well pull a U-turn and go back to finish off China!"

"Well, what was is that Patience said about getting the attention of all the countries? If we want to get people's attention, we should…hmmm…."

"New York City?" Meg suggested.

"No, no, then we'd have to do the rest of America, too." Jack tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Wait! I've got it!" he snapped his fingers.

"What?"

"Why not go where the world is _already_ focusing its attention?" Jack suggested, proud of his own genius. "Let's go to the Middle East!"

"Back to Kashmir!"

"The Oil Fields!"

"Let's blow up Mecca!"

"And then we'll get the other two thirds of the world at that giant Buddha statue and the Vatican!"

Meg paused in the revelry to consider the consequences.

"Holy shit, Jack," she muttered. "Do you think Patience's robots can stand up to _God_, too?"

Jack gave her a flat look and set the coordinates for Iraq.

"I'm not even going to answer that question."

It was late afternoon when the first SMART landed outside a sandy city with such intensity that water bottles for miles around tipped over. Each landing bot kicked up a massive cloud of yellowish, dusty sand, as did each heavy step. There was a relitivly modern city about a mile away, and the SMART bots trampled a number of highways to get to it.

Jack Spicer's Evil Army of SMART bots was received in the desert land of oil and M16s with a rocket launcher report. The missile left a gray, spiraling trail and detonated harmlessly on one of the many SMARTs surrounding Jack.

"As far as I'm concerned," Jack broadcast his voice, "you're _all_ my enemies now! I don't care what country you're from or who you're fighting for- I want unconditional surrender!"

To no one's surprise, Jack and his bots engaged the city and got _all_ the news coverage. SMARTs would stomp on the buildings, as they were larger than many, with their massive talons. One Mini SMART attacked a tank and ripped off the cannon so it could ride around on top. A pair of SMARTs drilled a network of tunnels under the city that broke water mains and caused cave-ins at random. Jack took it upon himself to blast his Evil Theme Song over the area from every SMART. That, it seemed, was the true torture of the people, who only _thought_ they had experienced all the terrors of war.

Every half and hour, Jack's message demanding surrender and rule of the city played, and was eventually translated into a few other languages.

"And, if you don't give in, I'll go and blow up the rest of the county! Muahahahaha!"

A Black Hawk helicopter rushed at Jack's SMART in an attempt to shatter the blast shield, but the bot leaned back and shot it down with a succession of rockets.

"This is almost too easy," said Jack smugly, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up. "At this rate, I'll have the world under my thumb by the end of the month!"

"Don't jinx it," Meg said levelly, pointing to a scene in the distance.

About a mile away, they spotted a SMART bot with its legs bound in high-tension cables and its engine aflame. A helicopter skimmed past it, riddle it with bullets, and whipped off again just in time to escape a massive explosion. The SMART teetered for a moment, and then began to fall. Being so massive, it seemed to fall slowly, but it smashed into the city ground and caused another, final explosion that greatly damaged the buildings all around.

"How did they do that?" Jack screamed, jumping to his feet.

"Maybe that one was flawed?" Meg suggested.

Jack took his seat again sulkily. "Naw, they just got lucky. Somehow I don't think Patience would send me factory rejects. Computer," he shouted to the ceiling, "order the bots to step up the attack! And, send a message to whoever the heck is in charge around here that they still have the chance to surrender!"

"Yes, Sir," the computer replied in a Jack Bot voice.

"Hey, the voice changed," Jack noticed the new voice. "I guess Patience did that."

Jack Spicer's Evil Rampage across the city and a few other parts of Iraq lasted much longer than Jack had expected. Enemy reinforcements seemed to always stream in, even after Jack was sure he had sent bots to block the supply lines.

"What is this? Why is it taking so long? They're like cockroaches! Or solicitors! I'm calling Patience!"

The night sky over the desert was alight with battling fighter jets from several countries and SMART bots. The fires from multiple cities reflected in the dark blast shield as Jack waited for Patience to answer his call. He used his cell phone this time, as the control screen was occupied with other matters.

"Maybe she's asleep," Meg suggested.

"Or, maybe, she's watching the news and seeing how _long_ this is taking!"

Then, the line beeped and Patience answered.

"I wasn't expecting to hear back from you so soon, Jack," she yawned.

"Yeah, right! Why is this taking so long? I've been at it for, like, eight or ten hours now!"

Meg heard Patience burst out in uncontrolled laughter at the other end. Eventually, she recovered enough to speak.

"Wow, Jack, haven't you ever picked up a newspaper or watched the evening news? Haven't you ever heard of World War One? Two? It takes _years_ to make any progress, Jack, especially with today's modern weapons! I keep telling you…"

She paused, realizing that this wasn't the answer Jack wanted.

"All right, listen," she said. "I did a little bit of vague number punching and I calculated approximately how long total world domination will take. Take, to begin with, the fact that there about 220 countries in the world, more or less. If 200 of these countries are just minor ones with basic defenses and even the mildest sense of nationalism, each one will take an _average_ of one week to two weeks to gain full control over. That's twenty-eight hundred days, at most. Then, the remaining 20 counties, a few of which are nuclear powers and absolutely out of their minds, will easily take a good couple months to defeat and conquer- that's twelve hundred days- but probably more. These places didn't spend centuries building up their governments and cultures just so some punk kid could crush them. But, all together, unless the world experiences some bizarre change of heart, I'll give you about ten or eleven years to conquer and control the whole world. Even then, you'll be fighting rebellions and such."

Patience paused to chuckle at Jack's expletive-filled reaction.

"Ah, yes, Jack. It sure seems like a long time, doesn't it? That'll make you, what? Twenty nine or thirty?" She laughed again, with a cold touch this time. "Don't worry: it will come and go before you even realize it." She paused. "And, now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go turn lead into gold."

The line went quite and Jack could only gawk for about a minute.

"Ten or eleven years?" he repeated slowly.

"I'll be twenty two!" Meg said happily. She paused, though, and her expression turned sour. "Ew."

Jack put his phone away and watched a distant city burn.

"I think," he began, "Patience just gave me those numbers to freak me out. If there's one thing I know about war, it's that it takes supplies and people to use them! There's no way the world could keep its armies supplied effectively for _ten_ years! Well," Jack paused again and considered, for the first time, the effect he would have on the world's economy. "If I take over the world and destroy hundreds of thousands of buildings in the process…hmm…"

"What?" Meg wondered, seeing he rather concerned expression.

Jack was then taking into consideration just _how_ the world would change. When he turned Beverly Hills to a smoking crater, wouldn't that also effect the production of precious commodities like, say, video games? And, if all the world's efforts are pouring into fighting him, what company will continue to sell pudding cups? Who will maintain the television stations? Who will monitor who cares?" Jack exclaimed. "Once I take over the world, I'll have no trouble putting it all back the way it was before, only better!"

Meg cocked her head to the side and made a small, slightly confused peeping sound.

"So…if you're Evil Emperor of the Earth, can I be Evil Empress?"

Jack came very close to glaring at Meg.

"Meg, that just wouldn't _work_. First of all, I'm almost twenty and you're, like, ten."

"I'm twelve!"

"All the same. You can be the Evil Court Jester."

Meg crossed her arms and pouted a little. Jack rolled his eyes.

"Alright, you can be the Evil Rave-Thrower."

Meg cheered up considerably and changed the music the SMART bots played to her favorite rave song.

The peoples of the Middle East writhed in agony and begged for mercy.


	13. Oh, no! There Goes Tokyo!

Chapter 13. Oh, no! There Goes Tokyo!

"Patience," Jack began. "Can I make a very special request?"

"…What is it, Jack?"

"I'm sending you designs for a SMART with a _very specific_ shell. There's something I want to do…" Jack clicked a button on his control board to send the pictures. "I want a SMART that looks like _that_."

Patience looked away from the camera to view the message. She burst out laughing right away, but quickly composed herself to a chuckle and grin.

"Oh, Jack. How could I deny you _that_? Yes, I can build it for you. I'll put it to the head of the production line, in fact." She paused for a moment to study the message again. "Wow," she muttered. "I can't wait to see this."

The screen went blank and Jack clapped his hands together happily.

"I _can't_ believe you're _actually_ going to do that," Meg said, shaking her head and laughing. "This is going to be the highlight of my life."

"This will be better than taking over the world!"

Since his beginnings in the Middle East, Jack had already, about a month later, asserted his power in much of Africa and sections of the Mediterranean. He and Meg spent most of their time cruising in the Mother SMART, the equivalent of a flying hotel with a built-in arcade, pool, skate park, air-soft field, et cetera, on a constant circuit of the earth. Occasionally, they would venture even higher into the atmosphere and enjoy weightlessness for a while.

It seemed they always had some kind of missile or other explosive projective headed their way, but the fleet of SMART bots surrounding the Mother fended off most attacks with little trouble. And, because there is no point in relating the action-packed though completely suspense-_less_ short stories of the dozen countries Jack easily squashed and conquered in the long weeks it took for Patience to build his special order, you and I are going to skip happily to the interesting part.

Jack and Meg eloped one day on a regular SMART to a secluded little cove in South America. The SMART stood guard over them at the base of a very large mountain hidden under colorful rainforest when Jack received Patience's long-awaited message.

Jack and Meg were sitting on a blanket near one of the SMART's gigantic talons, snacking on pudding cups and cup cakes and fried dough and tasty drinks with straws. Meg was lying on her back, dressed up rave-style, watching the clouds roll by as she licked all the frosting off a cupcake.

"Where did we _get_ these?" she asked abruptly.

Jack just shrugged. "They were here when we got here."

Down from the clouds Meg was watching dropped a Mini SMART, similar to the one Jack first tested in Kashmir. It retracted its wings before it even reached the ground, and came running right up to Jack like a cheerful dog. It knelt down next to Jack and opened its shield, inviting him to take a seat.

"Must be Patience," Jack assumed, jumping up to see what was happening.

Meg leaned against the body of the SMART to see the message as Jack played it on the control screen. It was only an audio recording, however, as if Patience left a message on their answering machine.

"Well, Jack, I've been trying to contact you for _some_ time now, but your bot tells me that you're down taking some personal time to stuff your pasty face, apparently. So, if you can get to your feet, you should come to Japan whenever you want to see your special order. _Don't_, however, fly over the islands or land. Loop down from the Artic Circle over the Pacific in a regular SMART, and dive into the waters well inside international limits. Your bot will be able to track me from there. We can't have them expecting anything. Then again, I suppose _everyone_ is expecting _something_ by now, though I don't think they're suspecting this."

Jack threw his hands in the air and laughed wildly.

"Oh boy, oh boy! Today's the day! I finally get to live out my _second_ ultimate all-time fantasy! Get the Camera Bots, Meg! I want to save these next few hours!"

Meg raised one eyebrow as the Mini bot ejected Jack and flew away.

"Knowing you, I have a feeling the whole world will have its video cameras on us. And, they _aren't_ going to be able to handle it."

The sentinel bot standing over them lowered its head at Jack's command and he and Meg leapt in.

"Down from the Artic Circle it is!" Jack laughed. The bot followed the same running procedure to take off, and within moments they were squished to their seats with their ears popping occasionally as they entered the clouds and flew over North America.

"If we're going that far north, maybe we should stop to visit Santa?" Meg suggested. Jack grinned and decided to humor her for a while.

"Why should I? Santa hasn't "stopped in" on me since I was, like, six! And even then, it was only once a year!"

Meg stared at him, feeling a little sorry.

"No, I'm just joking, Meg," Jack continued. "Santa actually had to move to the moon because the polar ice caps are basically gone, and he won't be coming back either because NASA says it's too politically incorrect to fund a Christian Saint and _not_ maintain the Hubble Telescope."

Now Meg _really_ stared, frozen in place, her eyes wide and slightly watery. There were a few moments of silence before Jack burst out in hysterical laughter.

The SMART took them north-east over the Rockies, Canada, and Alaska before they reached artic waters, took a U-turn over the straight between Russia and Alaska, and began their stealthy approach on Japan. With nothing but Pacific waters in every direction, Jack sent the SMART to dive into the ocean.

"I wonder if this will create a really big wave," Jack wondered out loud at they plummeted towards the sea.

"Has anyone ever dropped a thirty-story building into the ocean before?" Meg answered. There was a pause.

"Well, I sure _hope_ it makes a big wave!" Jack laughed.

The SMART cut into the water with its drill and plunged down several hundred feet in just a few seconds. One system maintained the air pressure and oxygen in the cockpit, while the guidance system picked up Patience's signal and automatically corrected its course. The grooves in the drill, it turned out, helped pull the SMART through the water.

After a length of time in the SMART during which Jack could barely contain his excitement, the lights of Patience's bot reached them through the waters of the polluted Japanese bay. When they were close enough to see Patience signal to them from her cockpit, they followed her down to the near ocean floor, where Jack's order stood waiting.

"How appropriate," Jack chuckled when he saw it waiting on the rocky, sea-weed ridden bed. He circled around it a few times, shining the bot's headlights so he and Meg could get a good look at it.

"No. Way," said Meg, gawking in utter disbelief. "That is far too good to be true. I literally can't believe what I am seeing."

Jack almost squealed in delight.

"This…is the happiest day of my life!"

Patience's creation was entirely a SMART on the inside, with many of the same controls, only it had a very special exterior, with a four-limbs, tail, and head design.

And this exterior looked like Godzilla.

It honestly, truly looked like _the original _Japanese Godzilla, just as Jack requested, and not the modernized Hollywood version. It had no metallic shine, but it was still clearly a robot. Its torso was built in sections, giving it an uncanny ability to bend and twist, while its arms and legs had full range of motion, down to flexing its ankles. It had the same dark green and earth brown or gray coloration, the same spine scales- everything. It had glowing red eyes, which were apparently the windows of the control deck.

"Pass me the keys, Patience!" Jack threw his hands up, greatly pleased. "I'm going joy riding!"

"There's a dock in the back of her head, Jack," Patience called them, "designed to fit the head of regular SMART exactly. Just position your SMART behind it, enter this code, and you'll be able to climb aboard without getting even slightly damp."

"Oh man, Patience! This is even better than I imagined! I owe you big time!"

"Of course you do, Jack," Patience muttered, but she had already ended the transmission.

Jack followed Patience's instructions, and in just a few minutes he and Meg were climbing a ladder from the docking bay into Godzilla's head. The expansive control room was filled with monitor screens, showing almost every part of the robot's body.

"Welcome aboard B.O.C. Godzilla, Spicer," Patience's recorded message played automatically when Jack took his seat. "I have a personal distain for city of Tokyo, for no good reason other than that I dislike giant, modern cities. So, knock yourself out. You're actually _in_ Tokyo harbor, so all you have to do is walk straight. And, just so there's no confusion over just _who_ is sacking Tokyo, I've sent for a number of your now internationally known SMARTs to make their presence apparent and, most importantly, catch every moment of this event on tape, from several angles."

As Junks drifted unsuspectingly alongside the more advanced, giant freights in the Tokyo harbor, all were aware of the bizarre new threat agitating the _world_, but until now they had only read about the SMARTs or seen them on TV. Tokyo, hacking on its own fumes, stood with its high-density population and world's greatest Average Life Span totally unaware that its most famous B-movie was about to be its undoing.

Breaking through the surface of the murky water, the giant lizard monster trudged towards the city. Seaweed slipped off it, a few fish trapped temporarily on its broad parts threw tantrums, and water poured from its joints and body by the thousands of gallons. It waded through the water, stopping only to pick up an oil tanker.

"Go long!" Jack screamed and laughed at the same time. Pulling levers and pushing buttons, he managed to make the Godzilla bot throw the tanker into the side of the nearest building. It exploded with an entertaining shower of sparks and fire.

Pushing on, Jack guided the Godzilla bot out of the water and onto land, heading straight into the city.

Most of the people who saw Godzilla thunder by their apartment or office window assumed at first that noxious gases were seeping through the ventilation system, or that they had simply ingested some kind of date-rape drug. But, after staring in total (and somewhat insulted) disbelief, they finally gave way to that all-too-familiar panicked screaming and running around in circles panic.

Jack made the Godzilla bot smash an arm into one building, and then take a bite out of another. Japanese citizens were already running wild in the streets and distracted drivers played bumper-cars on the road. There was one little kid down on the side walk who, toting his own Godzilla doll, took a few minutes to thoroughly enjoy the display until his mother snatched him away.

"What does that one do?" Meg asked, pointing to a push-in dial to Jack's right.

"Let's find out!"

Jack turned the dial and pushed in. A jet of flames burst from Godzilla's mouth, pouring down almost the length of its body. A city bus burst in to blames, and then exploded.

Jack and Meg exchanged the ecstatic, shocked looks of naughty little kids who just discovered the magic of vinegar and baking soda.

Jackzilla rampaged through Tokyo, tearing through high-tension wires and smashing buildings apart. He hefted up a subway car of screaming people, paused to take a look inside, and then placed it precariously atop a burning building.

"Y'aren't so industrious now, are ya?" Jack laughed as the tromped onward.

Meg even plugged her i-Poo (Yes, I know what I wrote) into the computer's system and blasted the official _Godzilla_ song by Blue Oyster Cult all over the city. She happily took the sixty-square feet of open floor inside Godzilla's head to dance around manically, rave-style, in celebration. A few of the Jack Bots, improved with Patience's intervention, happened to be on board, so Meg taught them some dance moves.

When the military arrived shortly after Godzilla's dramatic appearance, Jack had quite a bit of fun roasting tanks with his fire breath and swatting helicopters out of the sky. Most of the defenses launched against him had little effect on Patience's armor, though the tip of the tail did break right off after Jack smashed it into one too many skyscrapers.

At one point, Jack even decided to mash monster movies and climbed up the side of the nearest tall building. Meg offered to go sit in Godzilla's hand and scream cheesily, but the building began to crumble under the immense weight.

After about an hour and a half of overwhelming bliss, Jack discovered he was about to be interrupted.

"Oh, come _on_!" Jack snapped. "What makes them think they have a mouse's chance in hell?"

The Xiaolin Monks came flying in on Dojo, as they had recognized the SMART bots on the news report.

"Get out of my city, Jack!" Kimiko screamed. "Dragon's Breath!" She turned into the Dragon of Fire and rushed at Godzilla.

"This is lame," Jack sighed, cranking up the dial. He blasted Kimiko back with a wall of fire roughly the size of Manhattan and smashed Godzilla's fist onto the nearest building for emphasis.

"Here's the deal, guys!" he broadcast his voice. "Make me ruler of Japan, and I won't _level_ Tokyo! Keep fighting, and there'll be nothing here but a smoldering wasteland by tonight!"

"We won't let you have your way, Jack!" Raimundo cried out, hovering before him as the Dragon of Wind. "Maybe we can't look for new Wu, but we _can_ fight you every step of the way."

"_Good luck_!" Jack laughed. "SMART bots! Attack!" He paused for a moment as four regular SMARTS swooped in from the edges of the city. "That feels strange to say," he commented. "I'll have to call them Smart Jack Bots…or, something."

To no one's real surprise, the thirty-story SMARTs pummeled the Xiaolin monks. Their Shen Gong Wu had little to no effect, the SMARTs dodged almost every single one of their attacks, and the monks couldn't possibly stop Godzilla from flattening Tokyo _and_ fight the SMARTs at the same time.

Omi escaped the SMART battle for a few minutes to try to reason with Meg.

"Meg! You can't stay on the Heylin side! You are the Dragon of Light!"

"Are you joking?" Meg shouted back, using Jack's broadcast system. "You guys are just a bunch of work-ethic nerds! The Heylin side kicks hardcore butt!"

"But just look at all the people you're hurting!" Omi exclaimed, but before Meg could even retort, Jack swiped Omi clean out of view with the back of Godzilla's claw.

"They are _so_ out of this game," Jack said casually, leaning back in the control chair. "They never modernized, you know? The kicking and jumping stuff worked for a while, but that was all against Wuya, Chase, and Hannibal." He spoke to the monks again. "Face it, losers! You're outdated! You're washed up! It's off to the Geriatric Ward with _you_! The world is mine and there's _no one_ who can stop me!"

Jack gave his evil laugh, a news crew picked it up, and the laugh finally became world-famous.

He never found out just where the monks went after his SMARTs handed their asses to them on a gilded platter, but he didn't really care. A transmission from Patience informed him that she had hundreds of SMARTs all over the islands of Japan, and that she'd played the role of Jack's anonymous liaison in demanding rule over Japan in exchange for terminating the outright humiliating Godzilla rampage.

"Aww, but I _like_ to spread chaos," Jack whined when Patience told him it was time to pack up.

"Jack, if you keep this up there'll be nothing _left_ to Tokyo. And it wasn't easy to so much as _talk _to them- they're so obsessed with Bushido that accepting defeat by a punk kid in a Godzilla robot is enough to make them all gut themselves! I'll give you two more minutes, but after that you _have_ to throw it back into the ocean if you want rule of Japan."

"But I'm having so much fun!"

Patience sighed and brushed a lock of hair hanging over her face back into place, only to have it slide back to its original position as she spoke.

"Fine. Clear out in two minutes, and I'll build you a giant gorilla so you can go to New York City."

Jack liked the idea, but slouched in his seat a moment later.

"Yeah, but King Kong didn't breathe fire…" he mumbled.

"Jack!"

"I'm going! I'm going, already!"

Disappointed that his fun was over, Jack made his way back towards the bay and returned the Godzilla bot to the ocean. He and Meg played the _Godzilla_ song one more time as they climbed down the hatch to the docking bay and waited for a SMART to come pick them up.

Once safely in the SMART, the Godzilla bot vomited one more torrent of fire on the city before wading back into the sea and vanishing. It took a couple more tankers down with it.

"That was so much fun," Jack sighed. "I hope everyone saw that."

"Don't worry, Jack," Meg assured him, looking over her shoulder at the burning city as the SMART flew off. "I'm _positive_ they saw it."


	14. Missing In Action

Chapter 14. Missing in Action

After his hilarious romp through Japan, Jack took some time to sit back and watch his SMART bots sweep up city after city, country after country. He and Meg were in the Caribbean, trying to dethrone Castro. Jack was lying on the head of a SMART, reclining in the sun with a bottle of SPF 5,000.

"Just think," he commented to Meg, who couldn't wait to get to the beach and name it after herself, "I will have taken over the world before I'm twenty-one! That's just…!" He sighed happily.

"How much more do we have left?" Meg asked, trying to choose a pair of sunglasses from the broad selection a Jack Bot held up for her.

"Um…We still have to do the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, the Philippines, India, we still have to _find_ the government in the Congo… Hey, I know! We should just go after the UN! We can take out all the counties in the world at once!"

Meg shrugged and put on a pair of round sunglasses with big X's etched lightly over the lenses.

"You should ask Patience first, I think," she told him, picking up a beach towel.

"I called her the other day, but she wasn't around," Jack explained.

"Well, call her again!"

There was a flash in the distance, followed shortly by the screeching rumble of a massive explosion.

"I think the SMARTs just blew up another one of Fidel's mansions," Meg observed, shading her eyes with her hand. "Well, I'll be at the beach! I'll call a Mini SMART if I need any help."

She jumped right off the bot's head and landed on its lower leg halfway down. She slid the remaining 15-story height to the ground, where she pushed off and bounced away towards the sea.

Jack took the time alone to his advantage. A Jack Bot came up to him with one of those fancy fruit/alcohol drinks with the little citrus slice on the rim of the glass.

"Phone," Jack ordered as he took the drink. Another Jack Bot hovered up and displayed Jack Spicer's Evil Cell Phone on a little shelf in its torso.

Jack waited for about seventeen rings before he gave up trying to reach Patience by her cell number. He called her office, but only got the same old answering machine. He called her on her private home number, too, which she warned him never to call her with ever again. The phone didn't even ring by _that_ number.

"Aw, whatever. I'll do whatever the heck I want," Jack shrugged. He put the phone away and sat back on the SMART, sipping his drink. Several miles behind him, another villa was blown to Cuban smithereens.

* * *

Half the world away, the Xiaolin monks were trying to adjust to the newly instated Spicerist Government in China. It had barely been a month or so since Jack won the last Showdown, so his progress was truly impressive. Mini SMARTs were omnipresent in the skies and on the mountainsides, and, according to Kimiko's news report, it was even worse in the cities. 

"Have you _seen_ Jack's new decree of laws?" Kimiko exclaimed, holding up a paper she had just printed out. She held it out to Raimundo.

"_Citizens of China may say whatever they want and engage in peaceful protest,_' he read. '_All complaints and protests, however, will be completely ignored. Violent protesters or rebels will be annihilated on sight._' Well, that's nice of him!"

"Jack Spicer is a most confusing villain," Omi said, peering up at the pages of laws in Rai's hands.

"And, unfortunately, he ain't shy to flex his muscles," Clay pointed out as a Mini SMART peered in the Temple window before continuing on its way.

A unanimous sigh swept through the group, ending with Dojo.

"I still can't believe this is real," Kimiko muttered. "Jack Spicer…halfway done with taking over the world."

A news bulletin popped up on her laptop screen. '_Cuba surrenders'_ was all it needed to read.

"I share in your bewilderment," Omi muttered. He climbed up on the table beside the laptop and gazed at it hopelessly. "I feel like I should wake up any second and realize it is all just a horrible dream."

"It's like Jack put the Shadow of Fear under a magnifying glass," said Dojo.

"'Cept that no one in the world ever feared Jack Spicer takin' over the world," Clay pointed out.

Raimundo moved to the doorway slowly and slammed his fist against the doorframe. One of the lanterns over the porch shuddered slightly.

"This is all that Patience lady's fault!" he exclaimed. "_She's_ the one who gave Jack all the ass-kicking robots!"

An idea seemed to come to Kimiko, but she ignored it for the time.

"Do you think Jack hired her?" she wondered out loud.

"Even the _Spicer_ family doesn't have enough money for this many SMART bots," said Dojo.

"Perhaps it was something other than money?" Omi suggested.

"What else does Jack have?" said Kim.

They all pondered this for a moment, but could think of nothing. Clay passed Raimundo and sat on the porch, while Omi poked innocently at laptop keys.

"Well, I had an idea," Kimiko began tentatively, "but, I don't think it will work."

"Anything is better than nothing," Rai sighed, frustrated.

"I was thinking: What if we went straight to the source of the problem? Why don't we go to Patience and see if we can't make her an offer better than Jack's?"

Omi jumped up in excitement.

"That is perfect!" he exclaimed. "Quick! Let's go find her right now!" He jumped down from the table and ran outside. "Every moment we spend dawdling here only gives Jack Spicer more time to enact his evil deeds!"

Kimiko stared at him flatly for a moment, and then flipped open her cell phone.

"I'll call her first and find out where she is."

Kimiko found Dr. Patience's office number on-line, but the secretary who answered said Patience had been out for a few days.

"Can I have her cell number?" Kimiko half pleaded. "This is urgent." There was a pause as Kimiko typed the number onto a notepad on her laptop. "Okay, let's try this one." She dialed the second number. The others could hear the line ringing, but after the tenth and eleventh rings, even Omi accepted that she wasn't picking up.

"Ooh, just when we had a plan, too!" he moaned.

"I'm not done yet!" Kimiko said with a smirk. "Watch this!"

The others gathered around to observe Kimiko flex her hacking skills. She entered Patience's number into her computer, dialed it on her phone again, and then hooked the phone to her computer. After a number of maps and scrolling codes, the icon of a satellite bouncing a waved back and forth from earth appeared. _Searching _repeatedly spelled out one letter at a time next to it.

"If this works, which it always does, I should be able to pinpoint Patience's phone in no time!"

This seemed like a grand idea- at first.

"Uh, Kimiko," Raimundo began, "Patience probably isn't answering her phone because she's NO WHERE NEAR IT!"

"Hey, I didn't hear _you_ coming up with any good ideas!" Kim snapped back.

The computer made a beeping noise and a map up the earth appeared. The window quickly zoomed in until it narrowed to an image of a house taken from space.

"There!" Kimiko pointed to screen. "No one strays far from their cell phone."

"At the very least, it's a start," said Dojo.

The dragon was out the door in an instant and changing into his traveling size, but the monks had other plans. In their Dragon forms, they flew off with Kimiko's GPS to guide them.

"Sorry, Dojo," Clay said before taking off. "But, we can get there faster this way. Nothin' personal. We'll give ya call to tell ya how it turns out, okay?"

As Clay shot off after the others, Dojo reduced back down. His whole frame sagged in mild depression.

"Obsolete!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands out and then letting them drop to the ground. "Like the eight-track! I can't believe how they treat me! No respect, whatsoever! It's like I'm Chinese take-out and they're…they're…"

"A hired chef?"

"Yeah! Exactly- wait, who said that?"

Dojo turned around sharply and glanced around the Temple, but saw no one.

"Up here," said the voice.

Dojo recognized the voice this time. He slowly looked up with shivers running down his spine until his tail shook.

He was sitting on the Temple roof quite casually.

"Boo," said Chase.

The Xiaolin Dragons were much too far away by then to hear the glass-shattering scream, but half of rural China was not. The monks left a streamline behind them as they zipped over Asia and Europe, closing in on their destination in about an hour or so.

They descended into an expansive, remote field at the base of a mountain range and lined up about twenty feet from Patience's front door.

The home of Seek Patience was simply not what the four had expected.

"I thought it would be more like another Chase-Young-country place," said Omi.

"I was expecting a giant mansion by a river and botanical garden," said Raimundo.

"I was thinking of an evil layer built into a mountain," said Kimiko.

"The White House," Clay said flatly and frankly.

The others gave him a sideways glance, a bit befuddled, but quickly forgot it.

"Hey, just because I love Texas, don't mean I hafta' love the government!"

They were standing in a massive field, green around the house and golden with wildflowers lost in tall grass beyond. Snowcapped mountains reached up in the distance, and fairy-tale forest encompassed the whole thing about a mile away.

The house itself was, more accurately, a cottage. It couldn't possible have more than four rooms and _maybe_ an attic. There were flat little stone steps leading up to the door, with tiny purple and yellow flowers blooming along the rim of the house. A blooming vine reached up and around one window, and the roof had a pair of solar panels built into it. The paint job was pale yellow with a light blue door and shutters. They could see a potted plant sitting in the sun though a window.

"I think this is the wrong place," Raimundo decided. "But, if we were looking for Little Bo-Peep, we've definitely found the spot!"

They approached the house, glancing around for SMART bots or some kind of motion-censor turret system, but nothing jumped out to destroy them. When they were at the front door, Omi reached for the doorbell. There was a metal 'No Solicitors' sign nailed just above it.

"I think you're right, Rai," Kim muttered. "This _can't_ be her house."

"Perhaps Miss Patience _isn't_ really evil?" he suggested, ringing the bell. "Maybe she's just…" He paused as Clay pointed to the doormat.

'**GO TO HELL**' it read.

Omi stared at it for a second and backed away from the door. "Hmm…"

They waited outside for a moment, but there was no answer.

"What the heck are we _doin'_?" Clay burst out abruptly. "We didn't fly all the way here just so she could not answer the door on us! She's the enemy- I don't need t'be invited in!"

The others took a sharp step back as Clay clenched his fists and went for the door. Driving into it with his shoulder, he discovered that the door wasn't even locked. There _was_ no lock. The door flew open easily and Clay just about fell in to the darkened house, expecting more resistance.

"Helloooo?" Omi called out, peeking in around Clay. "Miss Patience?"

"Where're the lights?" Rai thought out loud. He groped around on the wall until his hand fell on the light switch. But, the light revealed an unexpected scene.

The room was in complete shambles. It seemed to have once functioned as the living room, but now it was a disaster. A tipped bookshelf had dumped books all over the floor, the coffee table was snapped right in half, the couch had frightening slashes torn into it, the throw rug was bunched up against the wall, there was broken glass everywhere, a broken lamp, picture frames smashed, more slashes torn into the walls, and a shellacked prize bass on a plaque was knocked to the floor.

"Whoa…" Rai muttered. The others nodded slowly.

Carefully, they stepped around the devastation towards the next room. The walkway had no door, and the kitchen connected to the front room by an open counter. The kitchen was destroyed, too, with the long windows over the counters smashed out, tiles smashed right up from the floor, and the microwave door broken clean off.

"This is too weird," said Kimiko. "What happened?"

Clay noticed the narrow hallway to his side. He entered, noticing more long slashes ripped into the pale walls. A door halfway down the hall had a sign on it that read, 'My goal is to keep the bathroom clean: your aim would help!' right below a sign reading, simply, 'Genius at work.'

Clay peeked inside, but the bathroom was spotless and untouched. The faucet was running, oddly enough, so he turned it off and continued down the hall.

The others were looking through Patience's mail and books, and Kimiko discovered her laptop, only to find it locked down by a password.

"Ah, another riddle to unlock," Kimiko said with a sly grin, cracking her knuckles.

"_Seek M. Patience_," Raimundo read, picking up a framed certificate off the floor, "_Ph.D. Seek M. Patience, MD. Seek M. Patience, Honorary Masters in Mechanics_. Jeez, she sure has quite the résumé."

Omi was in the kitchen, diligently cleaning up what he could with skills learned after years of chores in the Temple. He even took a few moments to water the many infantile potted plants.

Clay, meanwhile, reached the end of the short hall. The long claw marks went straight to the edge of the wall, which is the only way he noticed the secret door. With a few test pushes and shoves, he soon found out it was a sliding door that retracted right into the wall.

It was Seek's bedroom, and it was completely untouched. The bed, with dark blue bedspread patterned with tiny fish, was carefully made. The nightstand had a few books, some pens and pencils in a jar, some paper, and a glass of iced tea, minus the ice. There, too, was her cell phone.

Clay frowned and glanced around for the light switch, mildly afraid that this was the room where her assailant finally got her and that any second he would see her body. But, the room was empty- and certainly didn't _smell_ like anything had died in it- aside from a wardrobe, bookshelf, and some of the other usual furniture in a bedroom.

Before leaving, Clay went to the nightstand to take Seek's cell phone, just in case she got a call from someone who might knows where she is.

Back out in the narrow hall, Clay made a note that the slash in the wall _did_ enter Seek's room, but there was no further damage.

"Must've come lookin' for her in her room first," he concluded. He shut off the light, slid the door shut, and returned to the kitchen and living room.

"Anything back there?" Raimundo asked.

"Just the bathroom and a closet," Clay lied, "but it don't look like whoever did all this ever got back there. But, I did find this," he added, holding up the phone. "In the bathroom."

Omi scooted into the living room wiping his washed hands off on his tunic.

"I think I know what happened," he said with a forefinger in the air. "Miss Patience was at home when the intruders burst through the kitchen window. There was a huge fight, but Patience is only one woman and couldn't fight them off on her own. And then…well, I don't see any blood, so I don't think they killed her…"

"Outstanding deduction, Sherlock," Raimundo said impassively as he returned a small set of drawers to its upright position.

"Now, wait a second," Clay said abruptly. "I think Patience _could_ have held them off…" He went to the nightstand Raimundo just righted and pulled an ajar drawer open the rest of the way. He carefully picked up a powerful looking handgun with his index finger and thumb. "I sort'a expected Patience was insured by Kel-Tec…" he muttered as he unloaded the gun and replaced it carefully in the drawer.

Kimiko, still unable to break into Patience's computer, sighed and sat back on the couch.

"Well, so much for this plan! We sure can't break a deal with a face on the milk carton!"

"Why would there be a face on the milk?" Omi asked innocently.

"Check her contacts on her phone," Rai suggested. "Maybe someone she knows has…a clue."

Clay flipped the phone open and waited while it woke up.

"She's got three days of unanswered calls and messages," Clay stated. He clicked along to her contacts, but found a dishearteningly scant list. "The office," he read, "the Mother SMART, somebody named _Bastardo_, and…Poison Control."

"Who's Bastardo?" Kimiko asked, giggling a little.

"Let's find out," Clay said with a half shake of his head. He clicked the name. "Nope, sorry, fellas, no luck. There's no number, it's just…whoa Nelly…Wait a _minute!_ Take a look at this!"

Clay turned the phone around and held it out, and down a little, for the others to see. He was pushing down the scroll button, and for a good five or six seconds the same three-word sentence flashed over and over again:

_Kill Chase Young_

_Kill Chase Young_

_Kill Chase Young_


	15. The Complications Mount

Chapter 15. The Complications Mount

Great Britain, the United States, and, strangely enough, North Korea had allied in the effort to put an end to the young upstart, Jack Spicer. Navies from all countries had mobilized, battling the SMART bots over the oceans to reduce civilian casualties, as well as to put the SMARTs at a disadvantage: they lost much dexterity once in the air. Every European country with ships remaining set out against the SMARTs, and the US and Britain used their nuclear arms freely over the Atlantic.

Dozens and dozens of battleships and aircraft carriers dotted the ocean, set upon by hundreds of SMART bots of all sizes. Fighter jets zipped among them, but there was little they could do. Occasionally, a tracking missile would detonate on a SMART, but those only damaged the Mini SMARTs. The regular bots required something armed with a nuclear warhead to be destroyed.

"Die, you rebel scum!" Jack screamed, unleashing rounds on a battleship as he swooped over it in a bot. His SMART had the phrase "Evil Can Be Most Rewarding" stenciled in huge black letters over the booster jet, like a giant bumper sticker. He drove the SMART into the water with a massive splash, heading for a British aircraft carrier. Pushing a series of lit buttons, he called four Mini Bots to follow him. He cranked a switch and the SMART's drill started up. He closed in on the broad side of the carrier, while torpedoes made the whole form of the SMART shudder and screech. He saw a Mini bot explode out the corner of his eye. And still he closed in on the ship. Just as the bot retracted its wing…Suddenly his vision was engulfed in darkness; he saw the innards of the ship, massive engines stretching into darkness in both directions. Steam engulfed the bot as the drill ripped through the hull. Water was pouring all around and sparks jumped and flickered everywhere. Then, he sliced through the other side of the ship, with a bone-rattling jolt. The SMART slowed considerably as it reentered the water, but managed to propel itself away quickly enough before the aircraft carrier began to bleed fuel and rip apart from the interior explosions.

Jack put his head back with a sigh of relief.

"That was close," he muttered, seeing that all four of his Mini SMARTs had been destroyed in the attack. He burst up from the water again and the bot's wings shot out to take it to the air. A light was blinking in the top corner of the control panel, warning him of the damage done to the bot.

"So much for indestructible armor," Jack muttered. "Well, I guess that's what you get when you get it for free!"

The Mother SMART hovered near the edge of the atmosphere, overseeing the whole ordeal. Meg was up there, monitoring and sending all the SMARTs updates of enemy locations by the minute. Meg, they discovered, could communicate quite well with machines, as she could think almost as fast as they could when she went into bullet-time. Through the long windows of the control deck, the battle below looked only like a series of shimmering flashes and puffs of smoke, blotted out from time to time by a passing cloud.

Meg sent a signal to the abandoned Godzilla bot to wake up and attack North Korea. She received a message back telling her that, though the Godzilla was on its was to North Korea, the Japanese navy had secretly sent out a number of battleships that had been kept a secret from the world for quite some time. One, known as the _Yamato II_, was already out in the Pacific and preparing to engage the SMARTs on the Pacific.

"What is this? World War Two all over again?" Meg exclaimed, coming out of bullet-time.

_SMART 4439R destroyed_, the computer's indifferent voice informed her.

"_Another_ one?" Meg cried out. "We've already lost, like, sixty of them in the last two hours!" She pushed a button and leaned over the control panel to contact Jack. "Mother ship to Jack! We've got a problem! They seemed to have figured out how to take out the SMARTs! Should I call in reinforcements from land duty?"

There was a pause as Jack cleared away from the fighting so he could concentrate on his message.

"No! We can't give those counties an _inch_!"

"Japan already sent out battleships!"

"What the hell!" Jack just about shrieked. "Tokyo's going to be such a _memory_!"

"Forget about that, Jack!" Meg went on. "We're down forty nine Mini SMARTs and twelve regulars! There are only fifty Mini's left fighting down there, and your in one of _ten_ regular bots!"

"Call Patience! Why didn't you call her sooner? We have to…"

"Jack, I've _been _calling her! I can't find her anywhere! I've sent her about 200 e-mails, I've left a humiliating number of messages: I _can't_ contact her!"

Meg heard Jack shouting profanities under the roar of enemy fire and sputter of a machine gun as he passed it. She glimpsed another bright flash miles below on the steel blue of the sea, but it was quickly obscured by a column of smoke.

WARNING- CONTACT IN TEN SECONDS 

"Contact!" Meg shouted. "Contact with _what_?"

She lunged forward and looked down. Four missiles, each armed with a nuke, were spiraling up towards the Mother SMART. A number of faithful Minis and regulars rushed to engage and detonate them, but the missiles actually dodged.

FIVE SECONDS TO CONTACT

Meg broke into bullet-time. She sent commands to all the SMARTs within her control, but somehow their speed didn't match that of the missiles'.

"Jack! I've got four nukes coming straight at me!"

When she received no response for what felt like a good few minutes, she realized that Jack couldn't have possible understood anything she said. So, taking a deep breath, Meg returned to normal time and quickly repeated the message.

"They can't _touch_ the Mother ship!" Jack boasted. "It's a flying city!"

THREE, TWO, ONE…

Meg returned to bullet time, knowing that it didn't take much to destroy a city.

"There's something suspicious going on here," she muttered as she ran from the control deck towards the docking bays. She had to pass through two arcades and a tennis court to get to the bay, but once there she discovered that all the SMARTS were out, save a single Mini SMART. Hopping aboard, she heard the screech as a missile ripped into the front of the Mother ship, probably right where she had been standing. The Mini dropped out from its dock, but Meg realized that, to her horror, SMARTs can think as fast as she can, but they can't physically move that fast.

"Aw, hell."

Racing from the battlefield, even though it was a _sea_, Jack headed straight up towards the Mother. He saw SMARTs dashed aside by the intent missiles, and he was taken aback when they successfully blasted the front off the bot. The Mother SMART was a six-legged affair with engines to boot, so loosing its face, so to speak, wouldn't bring it down.

The shock wave from the four combined nukes repelled all the SMARTs, including Jack's, like birds dashed off a windshield. Jack spotted Meg's Mini SMART falling away, too, so he chased after it.

"They may have won _this _battle," Jack snapped as he called off his remaining SMARTs, "but I _will_ win in the end!"

He sped after Meg's bot, which she couldn't control as it had been severely damaged in the explosion. He saw Meg go into bullet-time when she vanished like an illusion and landed suddenly on his blast shield. He opened it just long enough for her to drop in, which really isn't much time at all.

"They're following us," Jack told Meg as she took the co-pilot's seat. "Those fighter jets."

"So? Blow them up!"

"Meg, there's something different about these jets," Jack said, turning a barrel roll to evade a rocket. "Haven't you noticed?"

"The missiles that hit the Mother were dodging the SMARTs no problem," Meg recalled.

Jack looked at her with an expression that told her to figure it out.

"And Patience is missing," he said bluntly. "I think she double-crossed us!"

"What?" Meg cried out. "She wouldn't! Miss Seek _hates_ them!"

"Do ya think? Or did she just start a war to sell her weapons to the biggest names in the business?" Jack arched one eyebrow and the SMART turned a somersault to fall behind the fighter jets.

Meg, for one, couldn't accept the thought.

"I don't get it…Why would she…?" A thought occurred to her then. "Wait. Miss Seek is missing, right? Maybe they _aren't_ moving faster? Maybe we're just moving slower?"

Jack looked at her quizzically.

"You're all about things moving faster and slower, aren't you?"

"No, I mean it! All the SMARTs are ultimately under Miss Seek's control, right? Well, what if something's happened to her and she's not around to, I don't know, _upkeep_ them? Maybe they don't work as well without her maintaining them from another control center?"

"Now there's a technical flaw if I ever saw one!" Jack roared. He pushed a red button and took out a few of the jets, but the rest dodged right away. "That's it! I don't want them following us!" He sent out tracking missiles to chase the jets away for the time being.

Eventually, Jack and his remaining SMARTs made their way to South America, where they met back up with the practically bleeding Mother SMART.

"I wouldn't know where to _begin_ fixing that thing," Jack admitted. "I've got nearly two decades of building machines and breaking them to fix them under my belt, but I've never worked on anything _that_ big and _that _complex before!"

About a hundred SMARTs were lined up a few miles from a city in southern Brazil, near the edge of a rainforest that had been undergoing clear-cutting until Jack waged war with Earth. The Mother bot was standing on five legs, and weakly holding up one that had lost a talon, still sparking in places. It cast a shadow miles long, and was probably visible from, oh, Venezuela.

Jack, viewing the damage from atop a standing regular SMART, didn't notice the little camo-jeep that rolled through the trees as stealthily as it could. It had Brazilian a license plate, but the sniper riding in the back was a U.S. Marine.

Meg, one SMART away, saw the movement in the trees below. She slipped into bullet time entirely on accident, simply because she was surprised. She noticed something in the air, silently sliding along. She realized, around Mach 2, that it was a bullet, aimed precisely at Jack.

Instantly Meg literally bounded into action.

"Light!" she cried out. With one powerful leap, she sprung from one SMART to the next, knowing that she could only move so fast, and that she might not make it in time. Reaching out, she collided with Jack in slow motion. The bullet was just a foot away from his head, and Meg looked over her shoulder to watch it slide by, like a tiny little train on an invisible track. She could see the air tearing around it and falling away in ripples.

Like a record picking up speed, she returned to normal time and heard the gunshot.

Jack looked around frantically, having never seen Meg come over. To him, it seemed _she_ had been fired out of a gun.

"Someone's trying to kill you!" she screamed, pointing towards the forest.

"Yeah, that happens to me more and more these days," Jack admitted passively. "Hey, wait! Did you just…?"

Meg nodded sharply, wide-eyed at how close his brush with death had been.

"SMART bots! Destroy them!" Jack ordered, pointing into the trees. As a pair of Mini SMARTs descended on the unlucky assassins, Jack turned back to Meg.

"We have _got_ to find Patience! In the meantime, you are now officially my personal body guard!"

A SMART that had not been damaged in the battle approached at Jack's command, and he and Meg jumped in. Jack sent out orders to the SMARTs to move out to previously conquered countries and continue to quell rebellions.

"Obviously we need to find Patience," Meg picked up, "but that's what we've been trying to do for, like, three days!"

"I _know_ that!" Jack snapped back. He tapped his chin for a moment. "Wait, here's an idea." He pushed a button and typed in a command to the SMART's computer. "I'm gonna have it take us straight to Patience. Her SMARTs _must_ have some way of finding her. You know that watch she wears…"

'LOCATION UNKNOWN' the computer replied.

"Crap," Jack murmured. "…Well, there's still one person we haven't asked!"

"Who? God?"

"No," Jack replied slowly. "Though, that's certainly worth a shot if this doesn't work. Who's the _one_ person Patience seems to always complain about? And who's the _one_ person who always seems to know something about everyone?"

Meg slouched slightly and rolled her eyes.

"Oh. Him. I don't wanna ask _him_. He won't help us."

Jack shook his head.

"Oh, yes he will! He will if we beat the _soup_ out of him!"

Meg stared at Jack as they headed west towards China once again. She shook her head slowly.

"You really don't need to edit your boasts just because I'm twelve," she told him. "Just say it: _He will if we beat the shit out of him_. I know that's what you meant."

Jack looked at her with his head cocked to the side, a bit vacant.

"No, I meant soup."

After a few hours of cruising over the Pacific and keeping a safe distance from the Japanese armada, Jack and Meg were back in China once more. Jack flew the SMART right into the Land of Nowhere, and stood it just outside the fearsome entrance to Chase's palace. Meg waited in the cockpit, listening to her headphones, while Jack jumped out and approached the front gates.

"Why am I knocking?" he wondered out loud as he slammed his fist on the huge gates a few times. "I don't answer to _anybody._"

But, as Jack stood there and scratched the back of his head in total silence, it seemed Chase wasn't answering, either.

"Open up, Chase!" Jack hollered. "I hafta find Patience!"

No response.

Jack was about to begin threatening to bust the whole palace to pieces with his SMARTs, until a novel thought occurred to him. He glanced down at his watch, which adjusted for time zones automatically.

"Oh…" he said quietly. "It's three in the morning here."

Turning around, Jack tiptoed away from the gate, knowing what bad luck it is to wake a sleeping dragon.

"No luck," Jack said as he jumped back into the driver's seat of his SMART.

"Huh?"

"I have a feeling that if I wake Chase up at _this_ hour, he'll probably chomp my head off without even pausing to hear me scream." Jack looked up sharply, realizing that that sentence didn't come out at all like he had intended.

"Well, good," said Meg. "Why would _he _know where Seek is, anyway? He's so secluded, he probably doesn't even know that you're halfway done taking over the world!"

As the SMART started up again and walked from Chase's palace, Jack drummed his fingers on the hand rest.

"Where would I go if I was an evil genius mechanic?"

"You _are_ an evil genius mechanic," said Meg.

Jack paused and stared into space.

"And, a single, thirty-four-year-old woman, and… a manic dentist…" he added choppily.

Meg yawned and got up to lay down across the two back seats.

"I don't know. A suicide hot-line?"

"A suicide hot-line?" Jack repeated, twisting around in his chair to give Meg a quick glance.

"Yeah, you know: dentists get suicidal because every one is s afraid of them and hates them. Dentophobia?"

Jack rolled his eyes and leaned over the controls. He fired up the booster, and the SMART took its running launch.

"Wouldn't that just be the icing?" he muttered. He thought for a moment. "But, Patience is evil, so she _likes_ everyone hating her."

"Okay, so she's hanging out with Simon," Meg suggested.

"Simon?"

"American Idol? The guy who hates _everyone_."

"Thanks for reminding me, Meg. I still have to go step on a bunch of celebrities. Actually, you know what? Let's take a break from conquering countries! Let's just go raid malls and steal Disney World!"

Meg brightened instantly at the idea and jumped up from the chairs.

"Yeah! Let's empty out a Six Flags and go on as many rides as we want! And then, let's pop national monuments up and swap them around! Let's switch the Eiffel Tower with the Statue of Liberty, and then put that enormous Jesus statue right smack in the middle of Mecca! Ooh, and then, and then, let's move every single building in Austin, Texas, to the South Pole!"

Jack had to look up at Meg sharply at this last one.

"Or, we could just go stomp on all the mansions in Beverly Hills and rearrange the 'Holly Wood' sign to spell 'Wooly Hold,' or 'Dooly Whol' or 'Moldy Loo."

"Moldy Loo?"

"Turn the 'W' upside down and get rid of the 'H'," Jack explained.

"You've had a lot of time to think about this, haven't you?"

"Well, duh!" Jack exclaimed. "I've only been plotting my revenge on the world since I was, like, six!"


	16. The Sixth Element

Chapter 16. The Sixth Element

"Okay, so looking for Dr. Patience isn't going to help us if we can't find her," Kimiko admitted. "What else can we do?"

"We should ask Master Fung," said Omi, somewhat despairingly.

"Oh, yeah, that'll look good," Raimundo snapped. "The Xiaolin Dragons have to go back to their old teacher for help _again_!"

"_Okay_, then we should ask Master Monk Guan!" Omi retorted.

"Why would _he _know anything about Patience?" Raimundo just about screamed. The aggravation, clearly, was getting to them.

The four were on their way back to the Xiaolin Temple, but Omi decided to redirect them to the Temple over the sea, where they had trained with Master Monk Guan.

"There's more'n one way to skin a cat!" Clay told them all. "Master Monk Guan is bound to know a thing or two about how to fight those SMART bots."

The Temple was built at the end of a precarious-looking stone arch, on tall rock base that reached up out of the ocean. It had a more rustic color to it, and but certain parts of it had a design that looked _remarkably_ like that of their old Temple.

The four monks found Master Guan meditating in the main hall, but he got to his feet immediately to greet them.

"Master Monk Guan! Master Monk Guan!" Omi called out, running up to him and waving his arms. "We need your help! We must defeat Jack Spicer's new robots!"

The others put their hands to their forehead or pinched the bridge of their nose; they all felt Omi was acting very un-Dragonly.

"Yes, Omi," Master Guan replied. "I was hoping you four would arrive: I, too, have been trying to devise a plan to battle the SMART bots."

"We tried to find Dr. Patience," Kimiko explained, "because she's the one who made all the bots, and see if we could make her an offer better than Jack's, but…"

"She's _gone_," Raimundo finished frankly.

Something about this new information seemed to bother Master Guan.

"Hmm. So, Patience is a part of this, too?" he thought out loud.

"You know Miss Patience?" Omi asked.

Master Guan shook his head slowly, not in denial, but rather trying to push a thought aside.

"I knew her, but that was a long time ago and it's a long story. All that matters now is that you stop Jack Spicer. Follow me."

He led the four Dragons down a hall to another room, the Temple's library. Like any good library, it was a vast collation of scrolls and mysterious books, most covered in a fine, gray dust. Master Guan took down a scroll from a shelf and spread it out on the table for them to see. The scroll had symbols of all the elements, and depictions of which element was dominant over which, and descriptions of how each one worked.

"Last time you battled Jack Spicer, he used your powers against you. The old lore is that Water extinguishes Fire, Fire burns the Earth, Earth withstands the Wind, and Wind evaporates Water. That, however, is not complete. If you recall, during that last showdown there were six pillars surrounding the battlefield, each one representing an element. The first five you know. The four of you, and Nutmeg Kake- who, regrettably, has lost her way, are the first five. The sixth element is Metal. The remainder of the legend is this: Metal defeats Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire, but the four combined defeat Metal. Light can defeat none, and none can defeat Light. It makes sense, when you examine the elements. Metal dams back water, becomes stronger in fire, is unaffected by wind, and is always stronger than rock. However, if you combine the four elements, and they fight as one, nature always prevails over the vain constructions of Man. And, while Light can evade all attacks, it cannot return any harm of its own- it's neutral."

"Well, that's good," Omi muttered.

"So, how is this going to help up beat Jack?" Raimundo asked abruptly.

Master Guan closed the scroll and returned it to its place.

"The Dragon of Metal is the key," he said. "He has willpower over metal, just as you do over your elements. Kake _could_ control the light around her, but she is too young and has none of the required training. If you can find the Dragon of Metal, he will be able to destroy or control all of the SMART bots."

All the young monks brightened considerably.

"Well, woo wee!" Clay exclaimed. "We've got this one on the barrel head!"

"There's no way we can lose with that plan!" Kimiko cried out, pulling a fist back in excitement.

Master Guan held up his hand to silence them.

"There is a problem. To begin with, I have no idea where the Dragon of Metal is. No one has seen him for some time. And, if you do find him, you must remember that his element is _Metal._ Like you, his personality reflects his title. Unfortunately, that is all I can offer you. The rest, you will need to discover for yourselves."

They all returned to the main hall and the Dragons prepared to leave.

"I wish you the best of luck," said Guan, "for I must stay here and protect the Temple. If I learn any more about the Dragon of Metal, I'll try to get it to you."

"Thank you very much for your help, Master Monk Guan," Omi said with a respectful bow.

"Yeah, we never would have figured that one out," Rai said with a double thumbs-up.

They turned and exited the hall, stepping back out in the ocean air. As the others changed to their traveling Dragon forms, Omi remembered something and asked them to wait just a moment. Scurrying back into the Temple, Omi went back to Master Guan.

"There is something I forgot to ask you!" said Omi. "You mentioned earlier that you knew Miss Patience. Something has happened to her, so maybe you know something about…huh?"

Master Guan just shook his head and turned away.

"When I say that it is a long story, I mean it's practically a saga. Seek's past is too convoluted for me to explain it to you right now. But, now that you mention it, I do recall that…" he turned back to Omi as the thought came to him. "Patience personally knows the Dragon of Metal. If you're that concerned about Patience, you're sure to find one if you find the other. Though, she's hardly worth your time; she's too deeply embedded in the Heylin ways by now. Even if you did learn of why she assisted Jack, there's no offer you could make to convince her to call off the SMART bots."

Omi lowered his head and nodded.

"When this is over, will you tell me the whole story?" he asked.

Master Guan had to smile.

"Optimistic as ever. Of course I will."

Back in the air with the others in his Water Dragon form, Omi told Kimiko, Clay, and Rai what Master Guan had said about Patience. They often passed a patrolling Mini Bot, and they could always see at least one somewhere in the distance, but they never gave them any trouble.

"Great! That figures," Rai whined when Omi finished. "Now we're looking for _two_ people that no one knows anything about!"

They continued through the clouds and over the mountains for a few minutes, until Kimiko said what they were all thinking.

"Who could the Dragon of Metal be?"

Suddenly, Omi waved his arms excitedly.

"Wait! Wait! I know!" he cried out. "It must be Jermaine!"

"Why Jermaine?" Clay asked.

"Well, doesn't that make sense? I mean, who else do we know who could be a Xiaolin monk?"

"Yeah, but I seriously doubt Patience _knows_ Jermaine!" Rai shouted, strangely agitated at the suggestion. "Seriously!"

There was another pause as they aimlessly followed a winding river through the countryside. Clay noticed the shadowy Land of Nowhere out the corner of his eye, so he casually steered the group away.

"Oh, now wait a minute!" Clay burst out suddenly. "You know, this may sound like a bull tryin' to woo a moose, but…maybe it's Chase Young?"

"CHASE?" the others all cried out once

"Think about it. He _used_ to be on the side of good. Being a Dragon would explain his amazing' fightin' skills. And, he knows Patience, too."

Each considered the prospect for a long time. Kimiko, eventually, shook her head.

"No, that can't be right. Chase is too old. Wouldn't the Dragon of Metal be around our age? And, remember how Master Monk Guan said his personality would reflect Metal? What's a Metal personality?"

"It doesn't matter," said Rai. "If he was the Dragon of Metal, we would have seen him use his powers by now."

"That is true," Omi agreed.

"Yeah, Chase would be, like, the Dragon of _Soup_," Kimiko laughed.

"He _is_ the Dragon of Soup!" Raimundo laughed.

"Okay, so that's ruled out!" Clay said, disliking how easily they'd shot down his idea. "I think better standin' on my feet, anyhow."

"Yeah, we don't even know where we're going," Kim pointed out. "Let's just land somewhere."

As the four descended, they saw that they were near the Spicer Mansion house, guarded by a regular SMART, which appeared to be sleeping. They came to the ground and returned to normal, trotting a few paces to slow down. They were just outside the exterior wall of the mansion, near the tree line.

Kimiko watched a Jack Bot, upgraded by Patience's technology, drift along the wall, stopping every ten feet to look around. The new Jack Bots were actually a little frightening, with better armor, guns in their arms, and infinitely more serious expressions. She watched it for a good minute or two as the others contemplated what kind of personality Metal would be.

"Well, let's think about this," said Clay. "They would have to be very consistent. You know, always set to one goal."

"No, that's not right," Raimundo disagreed. "Metal is like that sometimes, but it's also super malleable. It can bend and flex."

"This would be so much easier if we had knowledge of what _kind_ of metal to look for," Omi muttered, his hands tucked into his sleeves.

"Hey, guys…" Kimiko called to them without looking. "We're looking for someone about our age, right?"

"So we assume," said Omi.

"I think…I think the Metal we're looking for is very constant. That is, he's always set on one goal. But, at the same time, he changes right away under different temperatures and pressures. I think it's highly reactive metal…one insulted easily…"

"Where are you goin' with this?" Clay asked.

Kimiko turned around sharply.

"Don't you see?" she cried out, smiling a little, but concerned at the same time. "We've hit a dead end! He's our age! He knows Patience! He specializes in everything metal! The Dragon of Metal isn't a Dragon at all- it's Jack Spicer!"


	17. Meg Kake Goes Searching

Chapter 17. Meg Kake Goes Searching

Jack was having a grand time trampling Hollywood. The constant onslaught of helicopters and gunfire was a bit distracting, but it was nothing his minion Mini's couldn't handle. Sure enough, the word "MOLDY LOO" was written out on the side of the smog-shrouded mountain, and a Warner Bros. Studious building had a giant flaming "H" sticking out of it. People were screaming the streets and cars were backed up trying to escape the city. Then, it finally sunk in to Jack:

"I _am_ the news!" he exclaimed. "I'm the absolute center of attention! If anything else happens in the world, they won't report it because no one _cares_ about anything other than what I'm doing!"

Jack pulled his goggles over his eyes and cranked up techno-remix of his Evil Theme music. He made the rock n' roll symbol and rammed his SMART into another building.

"Burn, baby! Muah-hahahahaha!"

As Hollywood went up in flames, Meg was back in the Mother SMART, which Jack had programmed the regular SMARTs to fix. It was floating in the Pacific, a few miles out from where Jack was hard at play. She was looking through some of Jack's things, for no other reason than that she was bored. She came upon his Monkey Staff, stored in an instrument case. She took the staff down to the on-board playground and spent some time swinging around and doing wild monkey tricks. She even spent some time in bullet-time and bounced all over the ship monkey-style.

But, once she became bored with that, she abandoned the staff for the Ring of the Nine Dragons.

"I wonder if there's a story behind _nine_ dragons?" Meg said as she inspected the ring. "Why nine? Why not twenty eight dragons?"

Before she could try it on, an alarm went off throughout the ship. Incoming fighter jets attempting to take out the Mother SMART while it was damaged approached from the Californian coast. The SMARTs were forced to pick up shop and migrate a bit further west, deeper into the Pacific.

"We're closer to China, now!" Meg noticed, looking down at the digital map on the Mother's massive display board.

Just then, a feeling of loneliness overcame Meg. It was sudden, but she knew just why.

"I don't have anyone to play with," she sighed. "Jack was so much fun, but then that first SMART arrived and it's all he's been into since. Too bad the Xiaolin monks are such losers. They'd never play with me anyway. Not only that, but Miss Patience has completely vanished." She paused and leaned against the main control chair. "I wish I was older. Like, _right now_. When _I'm_ nineteen, Jack will be, like, 30 or something. Well, maybe more like 26."

She wandered away from the control deck and back to Jack's room, where he kept all his Shen Gong Wu. She went to put the monkey staff away, when a familiar object dropped out of a bag. It was the Green Thought, the little hat that looked like a snow-cap with ear flaps and long, vine-like drawstrings.

Meg stared at it for a moment, something formulating in her brain. She had a feeling that she was about to make some connection that would help her…

"I have an idea…!" she said slowly.

Excited as ever, Meg grabbed the Green Thoughts and jammed it on over his red dreadlocks. Then, she put the Ring of the Nine Dragons and the Monkey Staff back in bag with all of Jack's other Wu.

"Luck favors the prepared, even though I have no idea what else is in this bag!" Swinging the bag over her shoulder, Meg headed out to the docking bay. She ran there in bullet time just to save time.

Jumping into a regular SMART, Meg started it up and put the bag of Wu in the seat beside her. Dropping away from the Mother SMART, Meg shot off west. Since regular SMARTs are much faster than the Mini's, Meg was soon over the Pacific, passing over China, and approaching the home of Dr. Seek Patience.

In the fairy-tale field at the base of the snow-capped mountains, Meg landed the SMART and bounced down, taking only the Green Thoughts. She and Jack, too, had been to Patience's house when they couldn't contact her, not long after the Xiaolin monks had inspected the place and cleaned up a little.

Meg ran through the front door and went to the kitchen. Sitting on the windowsill was the little potted plant that Patience seemed to have acquired no more than a month ago.

"Green Thoughts!"

The cap lit up for a moment, and then the drawstrings curled back and up, sticking out the top of the cap like antenna.

"Hi, there, little guy," Meg said. "Do you remember what happened here?"

The plant shuddered and seemed to make a coughing noise.

"…Water!" it gasped.

Immediately, Meg took the plant and ran it under the faucet.

"Ahh! Too much! Too much! I'll drown, you nut cake!"

"Nutmeg," Meg corrected the plant, placing it back in the sun. "I'm Nutmeg. But, you can call me Meg."

"All right…Meg. Thanks for the water. Now, what did you want?"

Meg couldn't help but giggle. She's never had a plant _respond_ to her before. It wasn't speaking any language, necessarily, and it wasn't really speaking. Rather, it was just _thinking,_ and the Green Thoughts let Meg receive and comprehend those thoughts.

"I want to find out what happened to Miss Seek!" Meg said. "Did you see what happened here?"

"No, I didn't _see_ anything. But, I know what happened. That Patience woman got up very late one night- it might have been early in the morning- and went outside for a few minutes. I don't know why, of course. You'll have to ask the plants outside. Anyway, when she was outside, a man in black crawled in through this kitchen window. He headed towards Patience room, and changed into this horrendous pig-dog thing!"

"Chase!" Meg exclaimed.

"What? Chase what?"

"Oh, never mind. Please continue."

"Except, it was green. Maybe it was a dragon…or an alligator. Never mind. He went towards Patience's room and let himself in, dragging that deep gash into the wall as he went. But, he heard Patience come back into the house, and he walked right into her."

"They broke out into a huge fight. At least, as huge a fight as can fit in _this_ house. That's why _everything_ in here is destroyed. She actually put up one intense battle, but he seemed to know her every move. He whipped her in the end, but I don't think he killed her. He took her away, and that's all I know. You'll have to ask the plants outside."

"Really? Thanks!" Meg sprinkled some more water on the plant and opened the shade a little wider. Then, she ran outside and wondered which plant to talk to.

"Hello, little flowers."

"Hello! Hello!" the flowers chirped. "It's a beautiful day! Hello! Hello! I love the sun."

Meg raised her eyebrows and cocked her head to the side.

"Oh, don't talk to _them_," said a wise, sly voice. "They are _so_ immature."

Meg looked up and realized she was hearing the thoughts of the twisting vine that wrapped around the house.

"Do _you_ know what happened to Miss Seek outside?" Meg asked.

"Of _course_ I do!" the vine replied, a little indignant. "I know just about everything that goes on outside this house. Here, walk around to Patience's window."

Meg did so, stepping to the west side of the house. There was the one window in her room, and Meg could see that it was untouched.

"The night it happened, a very large and unusual cat came to the window," said the vine. "It had big teeth and black striped. It tapped at Patience's window with its claw until she woke up. She was very angry about being wakened. She came outside and chased that cat around into field for a few moments, until she suddenly went dashing back inside. There was a terrible ruckus inside the house, though I don't know quite what happened. Before long, a man in black dragged her out the door and used one of _her_ SMART bots to leave. They headed east, but you'll need to talk to the trees over the forest to track his course. That's all I know."

"Thanks a bunch," Meg said slowly, caught up in thought. "I'd hug you, but you look like you might be poisonous."

"Poison oak _and_ sumac," the vine said with a hint of pride.

Meg looked towards the trees of the forest, but she had a feeling that she already knew where Chase had taken Patience.

"Wait a second," Meg said, taking off the Green Thoughts for a moment to shake out her dreads. "If Chase wanted to kidnap Patience, why did one of his cats go to her window to wake her up?" She scratched her dreads and wandered back into the house. She followed the deep claw marks raked into the wall to the sliding bedroom door.

Standing in Seek's room, Meg glanced around. That glass of ice tea minus the ice was still there, with some kind of residue formed on the inside. She looked over the wardrobe filled with expensive suits, and the nightstand covered in papers.

Meg walked up to the nightstand and took a look at some of Miss Seek's pencils, pens, books, and some kind of Game Boy.

"Cool pen," Meg muttered, before turning away. Suddenly, she turned back around at it _all_ made sense. "Oh! That's the Master Pen! That must've been what Chase was after!" She snatched it up and held it for a moment like a sacred object. "Good old Miss Seek! She hid it in plain sight! Chase probably would have searched for _ever_."

Meg paused and stared at the wall for a moment, listening to the poisonous vine outside.

"_Jack_ probably would have searched forever. Chase would've found it."

"You know them?" Meg asked, impressed that the Green Thoughts could communicate through walls.

"I know Jack because Chase used stopped in here every once in a while and complain about him," the vine said.

"_How many things has he tried to steal from Seek_?" Meg exclaimed, holding on to the Master Pen tightly.

"He wasn't here to steal _anything _the other times. They just…well, they just talked, really."

Meg furrowed her brow and walked from Patience's room, trying to figure out yet _another_ mystery.

"But, Miss Seek despises Chase Young! With a vengeance! Oh, whatever. Adults never make any sense, anyway."

Outside once more, Meg thanked the vine again and headed towards her SMART. She forgot to take off the Green Thoughts as she settled back into the driver's seat. She secured the Master Pen in a pocket between two over her shirts.

The SMART took off again, heading back towards China. As she flew, not far above the trees, the thoughts of the forest floated up to her.

"Yes, he went that way!"

"Keep going and you're sure to find him!"

As Meg got closer to China, and the Land of Nowhere, the personalities gradually changed.

"Turn back now, stupid girl! You'll get yourself killed!"

"You don't know what you're getting into."

"We'll tell him you're coming!"

That last thought made Meg think twice.

"Maybe I should go get Jack…He knows how to use this stuff," she looked at the bag of Shen Gong Wu. "And, he's in charge of all the SMARTs." Meg nodded, turning her bot towards Hollywood again. "Besides, I wouldn't want him to miss out on the fun."

Meg flew right past the Land of Nowhere. She could see the fearsome entrance to Chase's palace, but there didn't appear to be anything special going on. A wave of curiosity suddenly overtook her.

"Well, it won't hurt if I just take a peek inside," she snickered, bringing the SMART bot to a rest in the gray wasteland. "I'll just bounce in using bullet-time, and I'll be out again before anyone even sees me!"

And that's just what she did. Taking only the Master Pen with her, for safekeeping, she bounced up to the palace gates and let herself in through one of the stone entryway's fiery eyes.

Going into bullet time, Meg's entire wander through the palace took about a second in real time. She even stopped at points to try to see if things actually moved around her, specifically, Chase's jungle cats. They _did_ move, but it was a lot like trying to watch the hour hand move. After all, Meg's average bullet time speed was, give or take, three thousand feet per second. That's just over a mile a second.

Meg took long, soaring steps up the marble steps that laced the palace, in search of either Chase or Miss Seek. Any normal person would have search in, say, the dungeon first, but…it's Meg.

On her way there, Meg passed an unusual sight. Wuya was there, _clearly_ stealing Chase's Shen Gong Wu. When Meg passed her, Wuya had the Eagle Scope, Fountain of Hui, WuShun Geyser, and Serpent's tail gathered in her arms, and she was looking _very_ devious. For the time, though, Meg was more concerned with finding Miss Seek and Chase Young.

Eventually, Meg found them in the throne room. However, the room was completely different.

"It looks like they're caught up in a showdown," Meg commented, looking at how the blue, stain glass windows were broken apart and each section was floating on its own. The braziers that normal sat in the throne room had broken down into a pool of molten rock and metal. Stone from the marble floor had shattered to form floating platforms at many different levels, clearly the only means the two had to keep from falling.

Meg was standing on the very edge of the showdown, but easily bounced in and zipped around the almost-frozen combatants.

Chase, in his spiked battle-armor, was right in the middle of a flying kick. Meg had never been so tempted in her life to go at someone's head with an electric shaver, but she didn't have one on hand.

Just a few feet away from him, also in mid-air, Patience looked like she was ready to evade the attack. Her clothes had changed, probably for the battle, to gold and black armor, similar to that of her SMARTs. She had upper-body armor with leaf-shaped shoulder guards and a black border running along most edges. Flexible black band-armor wrapped around his torso, and overlapped her skirt-like armor. It was the same color and design as her upper-body armor, but Meg was sure that, it was unwrapped from around the waist, it would be a perfect semi-circle shape. Lastly, under the armor, Patience wore all black, with cream-colored strips of material wrapped tight around his forearms and below her knees, making ninja-style gloves and boots.

"Cool," Meg said, having never seen Miss Seek in battle before. "I didn't know she could Kung-Fu fight."

Abruptly, Meg broke out humming that _Everybody Love Kung-Fu Fighting _song.

"Well, I guess I should go tell Jack what's going on," she shrugged, jumped from a platform to leave the throne room. Suddenly, she came to a lurching stop.

"Wait a second!" she screamed out. "If Chase beats Miss Seek, he'll turn her into a jungle cat! Or worse, a Chinchilla_! Then_ what will Jack do about robots! Who will clean my teeth? All my _other_ dentists have thrown themselves out windows!" Meg turned around sharply, remembering the time, a while back, she heard Patience talking to someone in the woods. (Chapter 7)

"That was Chase! Of course! Miss Seek said something about why she helped Jack...somthing about revenge or…she said…!" Meg pulled at her dreadlocks, trying to remember just _what_ was said.


	18. The Dragon Deity Formation

Chapter 18. The Dragon Deity Formation

Jack was all done with Hollywood. There remained essentially nothing but smoking buildings and wreckage. He had moved on to a place called Ojai, California, where he had a number of rockets aimed at an office building.

"On behalf of the entire Heylin side, _this_ if for all the crap-tastic lines you've given us over the seasons!"

Jack annihilated the L.A. Promotion Development Inc. building, along with all the writers who should have taken up stamp-collecting and called it a day.

"Ahh, revenge is sweet and spicy," Jack sighed, turning his fleet of SMARTs away. He glanced around and took a quick head-count of his robots.

"Hmm. All ten regulars and fifteen Mini's. Cool- I didn't lose any." Jack cracked his knuckles and drew up a map on the display board. "Let's see…which perpetual Yuppie party can I crash next? The Mall of the World might be fun," he pondered as he and his other SMARTs took to the air and headed east. "America really is a lot of prairie, isn't it…?" Jack snapped his fingers suddenly and looked up. "Oh! Chicago! An _industrial_ city would be so much fun! All the _fires_ I could start!"

Jack headed northeast and took the travel-time to give his partner in crime, Meg, a call. The Mother SMART, however, indicated that Meg had left the ship on a regular and flown to China.

"Huh. I guess she got bored." Jack paused to think for a few seconds. "Why do I leave my bodyguard behind?" he wondered out loud. "Oh, yeah, I remember; she's crazy and only attracts _more_ attention to me."

After a few more minutes of flying and downloading songs to his I-Poo, Jack received a message from the SMART's tracking computer.

"Incoming enemy attack," it told him. Jack had long ago changed to voice to that of his Jack-bots: he was just used to that particular voice.

"Blow it up," Jack ordered casually, his feet up on the control board. He listened for a moment as rockets hissed in launch and reported a few seconds afterwards.

"Targets taking evasive action. Sir, maybe you should take a look?"

"Don't tell me what to do, you soulless chunk of advanced A.I!"

"No, really," the computer insisted.

Jack stared blankly for a moment.

"I'm taking that personality chip out first thing tomorrow afternoon," he muttered. Jack slid down in his chair, to the brink of dropping out, to bash his heel on the button that turned on the rear monitor screen. He pushed himself up again with ease: any almost-twenty-year-old who has been building robots and other machines since before he could spell has some respectable upper-body strength. Leaning forward, Jack took a bored look at the monitor.

"Ugh. _Them again_," he growled. "_When_ will they learn their lesson? They can't beat me!"

The Xiaolin Dragons split apart to get out of the SMART's hot jet stream. They looped around and came in on the SMART bot from all four sides, trying to get Jack's attention.

"What do you want _now,_ you gnats? Where's the giant can of Off when I need it?"

"Jack Spicer! We know your secret!" Omi told him, racing alongside the SMART as the Dragon of Water. "We know how to defeat you, so surrender now or prepare to suffer a most…"

Before Omi could finish, Jack swung the bot to the side in a barrel roll that knocked Omi down about two hundred feet.

"Surrender. Right. LIKELY!" Jack swung the bot back to swipe at Raimundo. "And, what the hell are you talking about? Secret? There're no secrets here! You can't beat me and that's that!"

"Wrong, Spicer!" Kimiko shouted to him. "We figured it out! We know who you are!"

Jack smacked the side of his face in mock shock.

"Gasp!" he called out. "You figured out that I'm the ruler of planet earth _all by yourselves_! You're so smart! You get a golden _star_!"

On that last word, Jack pushed a button to unleash a swarm of missiles and flying mines. Clay swooped around and detonated them relatively quickly, his rock Dragon form totally undamaged by the explosives.

"Cease to pretend like you do not know!" Omi continued.

"We know you just…" Raimundo began.

"You guys sound like a cheap paperback romance novel!" Jack just about screamed. "WHAT are you talking about?"

"_You're the Dragon of Metal!_" they all shouted at once.

Jack arched his eyebrow.

"Um. What?"

"We know that there should be six Dragons, and that the only one we don't know about is Metal!" Kimiko told him. Jack had the SMART on a decent course, nearing Chicago. "You're the only one who fits the profile! You're about our age, and somehow you could build the most advanced robots by the time you were a teenager!"

Jack still stared, wondering if they were just trying to distract him from something.

"I think I would cry if I turned out to be one of _you_ losers," he guffawed. "Believe me: Jack Spicer, Master of Evil and, soon, the Earth, is no Dragon of anything! Don't you think that if I had your silly little magic powers, I would have noticed by now?"

Omi looked beat, his shoulders drooping a bit.

"So…you're sure you're not the Dragon of Metal?" he asked quietly.

"Positive!" Jack snapped, ramming the SMART into him again. "Now, out of my way, Freaktastic Four, while I level Chicago!"

Jack fired up the booster and shot off, his faithful SMARTS close behind.

"Great!" Clay sighed. "Now we gotta go save Chicago!"

"Even if Jack isn't the Dragon of Metal, he is still using metal," Omi said. "I believe we should use the Dragon Deity Formation anyway!"

"I'm with Omi," said Kimiko. "It's worth a shot."

The four Dragons overtook Jack, now nearing the outskirts of the city, and lined up in front of him.

"Now what? Leave me alone! I'm just trying to conquer the world here!"

"The world ain't yours for the takin'," Clay snapped, hovering at the end of the line.

"Dragon Deity Formation!" they all called out together.

The force of the magic actually slowed the SMARTs down, and Jack had to linger for a moment before he could get the controls back.

"Dragon of Wind! Dragon's Wings!"

"Dragon of Water! Dragon's Blood!"

"Dragon of Fire! Dragon's Breath!"

"Dragon of Earth! Dragon's Talons!"

The Water Dragon doubled in size, easily the 30-story height of the regular SMARTs. The Wind Dragon seemed to latch on to Water's back, giving the creature whirling wings, while Fire became the head and flowing mane, and Earth turned into the lethal claws that wrapped stone armor around the dragon's claws, arms, and torso. With all merging done, Jack was faced now with a giant, elemental dragon. It had teeth made of flames, and a tail tipped by ice.

"That's nice," Jack sighed, slouching in his chair. "Reminds me of the Power Rangers. You can tell when you're truly evil and all-powerful, because things like this just don't impress you." He sat up and sent out commands. "Jack-SMARTs! Attack!"

Jack leaned back in his chair to watch the robots attack, absentmindedly scratching his five-o-clock shadow.

Jack shot up like his Namesake-in-a-box when he saw what happened next. The Element Dragon smashed one giant, mountainside of a fist into a SMART; and smashed it to pieces.

"What is going _on_?" Jack screamed, gripping the control board. "Why are they breaking so _easily_? It's like they've turned into my old Jack-bots!" Jack gave an angry grunt and racked his brains, wondering what to do next.

"It seems your precious SMARTs are not as mighty as they once were!" the voice of Omi shouted to him. It was different, though, distorted as though underwater.

"Not so fast, little man! I _never_ run out of back up plans!" He signaled all the SMARTs to pull back and form up behind him. "Patience doesn't know it, but I hacked into her laptop at her house and got into _all_ her plans and designs. I don't know how _she_ builds these things, but it's nothing a genius like myself can't handle! So, because I figured you freaks would be bothering me again, I built…"

Jack had pushed a button on his watch to call his creation the moment the monks first arrived. Conveniently, he had hidden his creation in nearby Lake Michigan, and it was waiting high above for Jack's signal.

It dropped down from the sky and hovered between Jack and the Element Dragon.

"A brand new Element SMART! And, this one is even better than the first one! Patience was in something of a rush to build the first one, so I went through and worked out all the kinks! This bad boy is _unstoppable_!"

"Element bot!" he ordered. "Entertain the little babies while I go to work!"

Jack freefell for a few seconds to break away from the scene. The Element SMART literally charged at the Element Dragon, and the two went at each other with intense aggression. Fire spewed through the air, spilling from the Dragon's mane, while the machine matched brawn with the power of the Earth. The screams and thunder roll of machinery swelled in the air, rising to a deafening volume when combined with the roar of waterfalls, tornadoes, landslides, and forest fires.

All the while, Jack blasted the Blue Brothers' rendition of "Sweet Home, Chicago" over the city while he stomped around on it. He even made a pair of regular SMARTs tromp up and down a line of flattened wreckage side by side.

The dancing reminded Jack of Meg and her wild rave fits.

"I wonder where she is," he muttered to himself. "Somehow, this just isn't the same without her manic giggling in the background." He just shrugged and plucked up a post-card worthy structure. "Oh well. I'm sure she's having fun at some kind of ridiculous, neon, pokadotted-with-stripes rave _thing._"

Just then, Jack's cell phone rang.

"Spicer here. Oh, hi, Meg! I was just wondering where you got to…What? What are you doing there?"

Outside the city, the Element SMART and Dragon were cutting it close. Kimiko's fire was hot enough to begin melting one of the bot's arms, but it only plunged that arm into the body of the Water Dragon. A giant cloud of steam burst up around them, obscuring the battle from sight for some time. Raimundo beat the wings to disperse the steam, but in doing so distracted himself from dodging a powerful blow.

In the end, seeing as the outcome of the fight isn't all that important to the plot, the Element SMART and Dragon came to a stalemate, bringing one another to the ground. They blasted a massive crater into the ground, turning an interstate elevated highway to dust in the process. The SMART was too damaged to function, pummeled by Clay's intense Earth powers, but the monks themselves were wiped out, too. The moment the red eyes of the E.SMART dimmed out and its limbs dropped, they fell out of the Dragon Deity formation.

"Holy shit!" Raimundo cried out, kneeling on the ground. "That was…too much!"

"I feel like I just wrestled a…a tractor…" Clay muttered, sitting on the ground.

"Let's go home and try again tomorrow," Kimiko muttered.

"You feel like flying yourself back to China?" Raimundo asked sarcastically.

"No…" Kim sighed.

"Contact Dojo, Kimiko," said Omi, "and ask him if he will retrieve us from…this most humiliating defeat…"

"Yeah, I'll use that tracking device," Kim said, reaching into her backpack for her GPS.

"It feels wrong to just leave the city while Jack Spicer is in the middle of destroying it," Omi said, watching the fires jump up in the distance.

"Aw, Chicago never had very much luck, anyway," Clay said.

"There's nothing we can do, dude," said Rai. "We can't even _fly_, much less fight more SMART bots." He rolled his head back and stared at the sky. "Stupid Patience."

"Um, guys," Kimiko interrupted them. "We have a big problem."

"What's that?"

"Dojo's tracking device," Kim began slowly. "It says that he's at Chase Young's Palace!"


	19. Evil, evil, evil

Chapter 19. Evil, evil, evil

"What do I do? What do I _do_?" Meg was pacing up and down the marble staircases of Chase's palace at about 3,000 feet per second. Patience and Chase hadn't moved much in Meg's eyes since she left the battlefield, but she knew time was truly passing as it always had and always would. "I want to get Jack, but…"

Nutmeg Kake's ability to move in bullet-time came with a few other handy powers. To begin with, Meg could do things like run on water. Because she was moving so fast, she could lift her feet before the water had time to break. A bullet, after all, will hit its target before your hear the shot, just to give you a sense. Or, if there were a number of falling leaves or other objects in the air, Meg could jump from one to the next, as long as she kept her balance. The trade-off was that it was almost impossible for her to, say, push someone out of the way of an approaching object. Though, if it was the bullet, which was moving at the same speed as Meg, then she could simply redirect the bullet. She had to be quick, though, because bullets get pretty hot.

The other nifty ability, which partially explains Meg's hyperactivity, was this: if she started running in bullet-time, she would only become as tired in bullet-time as she would if she ran for the amount of time it was actually taking her in real time. For example, if Meg decided to run, say, three thousand feet, she would do it in a single real-time second, and she would only be as tired as if she had run for one second. To her, however, it would take almost four minutes.

"I could try to whip back to Hollywood in bullet-time," Meg told herself, "and it would probably only take, an hour and a half in real time…Oh, but that's still way too long, and it would take even longer for Jack to get back over here! The Pacific is, like, eight thousand miles across! That's, like, 40 million feet. Even if I never did run out of energy, I would be enjoying good and _boring_ Pacific scenery for, like, fifteen hundred hours! Arg! I'd be frigin', like, _sixteen_ by the time I got there! Well, not really…But I'd've been at it for about two bullet-time months."

(Author's Note: Meg was actually using numbers like three zillion, seven bidgillion, and one gigabyte. I may be only a secretary, but I have _plenty_ of time to pull out these slightly more realistic numbers while Ms. Patience pulls out teeth. I used Google Earth).

Meg threw her hands in the air and let out a long, whining sigh. She dropped to the stairs and sat with her head in her hands for a few bullet-time moments.

"What am I supposed to do? I don't want Chase to turn Miss Seek into a chinchilla or a cougar. Though, maybe she might play with me then." Meg looked over at a crouching tiger near the base of the stairs and sighed. "Maybe Miss Seek will beat Chase?" Meg got to her feet and started pacing again, ever restless. "Yeah, that's _likely_. I wish I knew what they were fighting over…"

Just then, Meg stopped and shook her head.

"DUH!" she cried out, reaching into the pocket formed by her two shirts. "The Master Pen! That's what Chase wanted, and that must be why he kidnapped Miss Seek! Oh, I feel so _smat_!" she cried happily with a thrown in, random, Bostonian accent. "How is it that I'm figuring all this stuff out so easily? This must be what it's like to be an Evil Genius! Maybe it's because my brain is in overdrive? That must be it! I must get smarter in bullet-time because I think faster! Ooh, this is _awesome_! I can't wait to tell Jack. Jack! Wait, what do I do about Miss Seek?"

Meg then remembered Jack's bag of Shen Gong Wu.

"Let's see what's in that thing," Meg decided.

Practically flying back out to the SMART, Meg was forced to return to real time just long enough to pick up the bag and empty its contents into the air. Returning to bullet- time immediately, she inspected the collection of Wu that froze in the air before her.

"Backn'Forth Bracelets, Ring of Nine Dragons, Green Thoughts, Monkey Staff, Reversing Mirror, Changing Chopsticks- Oh, perfect! The Shroud of Shadows!"

Meg returned to real time and stuffed all the Wu back into the bag except for the Monkey Staff and the Shroud of Shadows. Finally, she bullet-timed back to the palace, this time with a plan formulating.

"I've never formed a plan without Jack before. He's usually the mastermind…"

Meg took a deep breath and ran back to the scene of the showdown. On her way there, however, she passed Wuya, who was making her way down a flight of stairs with the four stolen Wu.

"You know what?" Meg said to herself, pulling out the Master Pen. "All Jack does is dream of taking over the world and complain about Wuya. Wuya was _never_ nice to Jack, and anyone who isn't nice to Jack isn't my friend. Let's see what makes this thing so special." She held up the Master Pen and began scrolling though it's almost infinite selection of objects it could create. When Meg finally found the 'Mystical Objects' section, she delved deeper into the contents of the pen until she found just what she was looking for.

"I'm sure Miss Seek won't mind if I play with this a little," Meg snickered. "MASTER PEN!"

There was a bright green flash and Meg was forced out of bullet-time. A stream of black ink poured from the pen and took on a shape. It was a small, brown and red puzzle box, and it was already open.

"So long, Wuya! The Heylin side is just getting too crowded!" Meg laughed.

Wuya, who hand no idea where the hell Meg came from or what was happening, barely got a scream in sideways before she was sucked back into the Magic Puzzle Box for the third time in her Evil career.

Meg looked at Chase's Wu, her own, the puzzle box, and then to the Master Pen.

"Can you just make me, like, a burlap sack, Master Pen?"

Obligingly, the Pen produced a sack for Meg to stuff all the Wu, and Wuya, in for the time.

"Arg! What _is_ this?" Meg screamed as she ran _all the way_ back to the SMART to dump the sack. "I hope Jack appreciates me!" she growled. "Movin' all this shit around…"

Since Meg's three returns to real time, the battle had progress about fifteen seconds. Patience was almost horizontal, a fist extended in a punch that Chase had just ducked below. Meg could tell by the position of his feet that he was about to swing around and kick her in the side.

"Let's try this…" Meg said, standing just outside the throne room. "Master Pen: Cell phone!"

With a green flash and an upending of ink, a pink and orange cell phone formed in Meg's hand.

"Cool," he laughed as she dialed Jack.

"Hey, Jack…Yeah, I'm in Chase Young's Palace. …I don't know! I was coming to tell you that I found Miss Seek. Yeah, Chase kidnapped her to get the Master Pen that she…yeah, that she stole from you in the first place. Well, I guess it wasn't _really_ stealing…Can you come pick me up? And, come get Miss Seek, too, before Chase turns her into a Mountain Lion. …Chicago? Well, can't that wait? I'm serious, Jack! Just come and get me!"

Meg tossed the phone over her shoulder and put the Master Pen in her shirt-pouch.

"Shroud of Shadows!" Meg said quietly, going invisible. She still had the Monkey Staff under her arm as she returned to the transformed throne room.

Chase had slammed his foot into Patience's side and sent her flying into one of the blue window shards when Meg returned to real time to speak with Jack. Seek recovered quickly, kicked off, and lunged back at Chase. It was close, fast fighting, and if Meg hadn't been such a hyper personality she wouldn't have been able to see about a third of the moves the two made.

They jumped from one platform to the next, dodging, defending, and always thinking two moves ahead. Patience was vicious, but Chase was merciless. In the midst of a series of fast punches and kicks, Patience even tried to _bite_ Chase.

"Hyper-aggression was always your approach," Chase said, jumping back to a higher platform to get a few words in.

"It's the _fight in the dog_, Chase!" Patience snapped back, wiping blood from the edge of her mouth.

Chase just scoffed.

"Dog-person," he sneered.

"Cat-person!" Patience shouted back, pointing an accusing finger.

They didn't hear Meg giggle on the sidelines over the din of their own exerted breathing and the constant rumble of the molten rock and metal far below.

And the fight went on. Patience and Chase tore at one another for a good hour, falling to just a few feet above the fire, climbing to the highest platform in the battle, and always pushing their hardest to win. Eventually, Meg began to notice a trend. Patience had a repertoire of moves that came with being an experienced fighter. However, Chase not only recognized each move and countered it the moment she used it, but he was clearly pulling off stuff that Seek had never seen before.

They were all the standard moves that forced Meg to stifle high-pitched giggles.

"Snake tying shoelaces!"

"Janitor winding clock!"

"Penguin taking flight!"

"Gopher wielding hedge clippers!"

"Hack writing script!"

Seek didn't know 'Hack writing script.'

"I actually _invented_ that one a few seasons ago, right after I had to say 'the prophecy has been fulfilled,' line," Chase explained casually as he knocked Seek into the air with that exceptionally powerful move.

"I'll have to remember that one," Seek said with a wince, rushing at Chase again once she recovered.

Suddenly, there was a strange turn in the battle when Patience attacked with unusual force. Meg was too far above to see, but it looked like Patience slammed both her fists into Chase's side. The odd part was that it looked like sparks jumped up where her hands met his armor. They were on a far platform, high above the fire but without another platform for some distance. Chase disappeared over the edge, but Patience reached out and grabbed him by the forearms.

"Did you ever watch 'The Lion King'?" was all she said.

She let go of Chase and watched him fall for a moment. He disappeared below the platform, so Patience stood up and turned around. Suddenly, something smashed into the marble and smashed it to pieces, sending Patience sprawling.

"But I can fly, so it doesn't _really_ _matter!_" Chase yelled, hovering in the air for a moment before landing on a new section of floor.

Patience, who'd fallen on her rear on another platform, rubbed a knuckle in her right eye to clear out some blood seeping form beyond her hairline.

"Yeah, about that, Chase…How come you only fly _some _of the time? Can you only do it during neap tides, or when the NASDAC is up, or what?"

Chase just crossed his arms and lowered his eyes for a moment, slowly shaking his head.

"Get back up, Patience. You can go about the folderol after you lose."

"Right, Chase," Seek snapped, jumping to her feet. "I've been waiting to kick the shit out of you ever since you-know-what! I'm _not_ about to lose."

Chase snickered and contained an evil laugh.

"I still get a laugh out of that. You went insane…"

Apparently, Seek was _still_ insane over who-knows-what and lunged for Chase again. The fight picked right back up, with swiping kicks, flipping around, and general Kung-Fu chaos, most of which Meg only _wish_ she knew how to do.

"Master Pen," she whispered quietly. "Popcorn."

Big. Ass. Mistake.

That green light flooded the room as the Master Pen created a box of hot popcorn for Meg.

"What the hell was that?" Seek asked aloud, turning away for a split second. Chase wasted no time in landing a spinning kick clean and hard, right in her stomach. Patience was thrown back, all the way to the glass walls again.

"I thought you noticed," Chase taunted, jumping towards Seek. "Didn't you smell the reek of Jack Spicer blended with Fruit Juice the moment she came in?"

"Sorry, Chase- I don't have a big, ugly-ass, pig-dog snout like _you_ do. Oh, wait, you're still in your human form. _I couldn't tell_."

With a death-hiss, Chase grabbed the weakened Patience by the collar and tossed her diagonally into the air. She slammed into another window shard higher up, this time with an excruciating cry of pain.

"Sure, kick 'em when they're down," she gasped. "It's because I live in _Germany_, isn't it?"

Chase leapt up in one strong bound to a platform across from Seek.

"Just go ahead and use your powers," Chase seemed to dare her. "You already did it once this battle, and I've got the singe marks on my armor to prove it."

Patience was down for a few seconds, the wind knocked out of her. Chase stood with his arms crossed and waited, glaring fiercely. The red, shimmering light from the fire below only made it all that much more creepy. Seek groaned and strained to get back to her feet, and even then she was unsteady. She had a slightly wild look in her eye as she inspected the blood on her hand when she touched her head again.

"Do you _not_ bleed?" she sarcastically wondered aloud.

"I'm not bleeding because you haven't _touched_ me yet."

"I completely _have_, Chase, and you know it. I've just been going easy on you because of your mental retardation issues."

Chase shook his head slowly, containing an evil grin.

"Ha! We both know that this is the best you can do."

Chase evidently struck a nerve, for Patience finally lost her…um, patience. Apparently, Seek Patience had a few issues with the thought of being weak.

She clenched her fists and went to jump at Chase.

"You _asked_ for it! _Never_ fool with molten metal! Dragon of Metal! Dragon's Body!"

Meg's jaw fell open and she dropped her popcorn.


	20. Battle to the Death

Chapter 20. Battle to the Death

"I don't know what Patience did that she's not doing now," Jack said aloud, "but I don't care. I've got her laptop, and I've got _all_ her designs!" He laughed as he scrolled through Patience's files. "I don't even _need _her anymore! But, as long as I have to pick up Meg, I might as well stop in and give Patience a piece of my amazing mind."

The Spicer fleet of SMARTs rushed towards China, ready to land outside Chase's palace in about five minutes. They passed over mainland China, but the view was a little different from the usual.

In the distance, Jack saw the dark smudge that was the Land of Nowhere. It had a strange reddish glow to it, and dark clouds had formed overhead.

"Chase must be in an extra bad mood," Jack commented, leaning on the armrest. He slowed the fleet down once he came to the edge of the Land of Nowhere. He watched as a long, writhing dragon spiraled up from Chase's palace, whipping about as though in pain. Suddenly, it gave a particularly sharp flick of its tail and Jack was startled to see none other than Meg Kake come flying through the air towards him. He was so surprised that he didn't even open the blast shield right away.

Meg smacked against the industrial glass and stuck for a moment, laughing manically. Jack opened the shield and she dropped in gently, landing in the seat beside him.

"Oh, wow, Jack! That was so much fun! I'm so glad you're here! Chase and Miss Seek are absolutely trying to kill each other, and I don't know what it's about! Actually, I think they're fighting over the Master Pen, but they don't realize that _I _have it! Are you going to watch the fight with me? They've been at it for a _long_ time now, so it's bound to end soon. I was getting kind of lonely, actually. Want some popcorn?"

Jack just stared for a moment, his mouth open a slit.

"Patience is fighting Chase?" he repeated. "Where is she?"

Meg just pointed, stuffing away some more popcorn.

"That?" Jack shouted. "That metal dragon thing is…Patience? Metal Dragon?" Jack just about jumped out of his chair. "No way! Is _that_ how she built all the robots…?"

"And that's why they're breaking down," Meg added. "Chase kidnapped Miss Seek and must've been really mean to her or something."

"Great," Jack rolled his eyes. "So, if Patience loses, all my SMARTs will fall apart." He paused and glanced at her laptop. "Well, whatever. I can just rebuild them, and make them even better than before."

Meg started suddenly, spilling some popcorn.

"Oh! Look! Look! He is _so_ mean!"

Jack flew the SMARTs a little closer, but ordered them to give the fight a constant, wide berth.

As Meg had pointed out, dragon-Chase was latched on to the Dragon of Metal, pummeling it with black magic fire.

Seek managed to flip Chase from her back, and turned fast enough to grab him in midair. The Dragon of Metal had massive, deadly talons like gauntlets, and a sectioned, armored body of strong silver metals.

"You're not the only one who will bite a dragon in two," Patience laughed, squeezing the trapped dragon-Chase.

"I dare you," he snickered back.

The jaws of the Dragon of Metal, filled with teeth like ten-foot daggers, lunged forward and went to bite Chase. But, at the last instant, Chase turned back to his human form and dropped easily from the Dragon's grip. Now able to fly, Chase flew for the Dragon's body, slamming into it with a heavy series of pedaling kicks.

Patience was knocked back a good distance, but wasn't hurt in the least.

"All the martial arts skill in the world won't be enough to win," she told him darkly.

"Then it's a good thing I have more than just my martial arts!" Chase said as he spiraled around the long body of the Dragon, making it chase him in corkscrews. Then, he lifted his hands over his head and fired a familiar blast of black and deep purple magic straight up, nailing the Dragon in the underside of its jaw. The spot where the metal was hit formed a kind of ugly, melting sore that dripped liquid metal for a few moments.

Seizing the chance, Chase flew up and got under the Dragon's armor to attack from within.

Jack and Meg watched in horror as the Dragon of Metal screamed and spiraled through the air.

"It looks like it just inhaled a bottle of mustard gas," Jack muttered.

The Dragon nearly tied itself in a knot, twisting around and coiling in a random, erratic manner.

"_What_ is he doing?" Meg wondered as the Dragon seemed to be kicked from within.

Suddenly, it started to seemingly bleed. It began with its eyes, where red and white hot metal started to gush out. Its mane began to drip metal, which hardened while it fell and buried itself in the ground far below like frozen lighting bolts. Then, the flaming metal started to seep from between the gaps in its many sections and whip from the end of its tail. All the while, the Dragon of Metal still made sounds like screaming machinery and breaking gears, still struggling and thrashing in the air.

Then, finally, Jack and Meg caught sight of something disturbing. The Dragon stopped in mid-air, its arms spread and its chest pressed forward by some invisible force. A red-hot glow appeared in the center of its chest, no larger than six feet tall and a few feet across. The spot sparked a little and began melting. Then, suddenly, as though its heart was exploding, Patience was forced from the body of the Dragon of Metal. She came out back-first, Chase with one hand around her neck and the other fending off her continual attacks. Hot metal spewed from the rupture, and, as Seek and Chase plummeted towards the ground, the Dragon slowly died. Its metallic skull fell in on itself and its arms ripped away from its body, long stands of sticky looking metal stretching out in the socket.

Some sections of the Dragon dropped away while others melted, but in the end it was reduced to a smoking heap of wrecked metal in the middle of a Nowhere forest.

Seek and Chase plummeted down, still tearing into each other with uncontrolled rage. But, all too soon, they hit the ground together. A column of dust and earth shot into the air on contact, spraying debris like branches and rock. Jack and Meg both winced when it happened, though they had just about shrieked when the Dragon's heart seemed to be ripped out.

There was silence for a few moments. All Jack and Meg could hear was the humming of the SMART's engines, but they were too used to that by now to really notice. They _did_ notice, however, when it suddenly stopped.

All the SMARTs turned off, died, and went into a free fall.

Jack swore loudly and profusely, opening the blast shield. He grabbed Meg by the arm and leapt from the cockpit with all his might.

Meg hung there for a moment and watched as a dozen thirty-story robots smashed to the ground and erupted in a blaze. Jack, she noticed, had at some point traded his Heli-pack for a sleek looking Jetpack, which was actually very similar to the Heli-pack in color and design, only vertically elongated.

"Let's see what happened," Meg called up to him.

"Take a wild and outrageous guess as to who won," Jack said sarcastically. He reached down and plucked the clinging Meg from his leg and held her like a football under one arm.

Jack descended to the forest, which had been cleared as if by Daisy Cutter from the force of the impact. He landed on the shredded dirt and sat Meg on the ground to look for Seek and Chase.

"If the SMART bots died, I wonder if Seek…" he began. But, he saw Meg's eyes turn pathetic and watery, so he didn't continue. "Hey, don't worry Meg. I'm sure she's just a cougar or a…a pancake."

Jack wandered forward carefully. Smoke was curling through the air, and steam from the bolts of cooling metal protruding from the earth hid his feet from sight. Trees were alight in the distance, showing the massive ring of destruction caused by the fight.

Eventually, Jack found the crater. It wasn't more than eight feet deep at its center, but it was at least fifty feet in radius. Jack stepped down the gradual decline, well aware that he might find something he didn't want to see at the center.

He looked down when he noticed the ground was coated in a thin skin of metal. It was slippery underfoot, looked like silver, and shimmered strangely in the light of all the fires.

Then, Jack saw movement ahead of him. He heard someone groan in pain and the sound of brushing clothes. A figure was walking from the crater, perpendicular to Jack. He could tell by his shape that it was Chase.

"C.Y!" Jack called out, running towards him. Chase looked at him sharply and let out a low, deadly hiss. His upper-body armor was _gone, _including his armguards, presumably melted away by Patience. His black shirt underneath was torn up the sleeves and his forearms were bleeding all over his hands. He had an envelope clenched in one fist, and, Jack saw as he walked away, a nasty burn snaking along the back of his neck and jaw.

"Where's Seek Patience?" Jack tried again.

"Hell, presumably," Chase said with an evil grin.

"She's _dead_?" Jack exclaimed, forgetting that Meg could probably hear him in the dense air.

"Don't know. But, if she _is_ alive, let me know and I'll finish her off."

And Chase vanished into the shadows and fires.

"Aw, hell," Jack muttered, sliding on the metal towards where Chase had walked from.

He found her, lying face up, in the center of the depression. She looked dead, that was for sure. Her battle armor was shattered, leaving her in her black shirt and dark kilt. There was blood on her face, arms, hands, and seeping through the cloth of her pants.

(Author's note: Just as only Chase can pull off the Sock and Sandal combination, only Seek can pull off the Skirt and Pants look.)

Jack was sickened to see one place where a shattered bone had ripped a small hole in her shin. Her eyes were shut, but her face had lost all expression.

"Holy shit," Jack muttered, inching closer to feel for her pulse.

"What is it?" Meg called down from the rim of the basin, innocently unaware of the scene.

"Don't come down, Meg," Jack warned her. "It's not good."

"Is she okay?" she asked.

"Meg," Jack said slowly, "she is the _opposite_ of okay."

Meg let out an angry, exasperated gasp.

"Ooh, Chase Young! You're in for it now!"

"Wait, Meg!" Jack called to her before she took off into bullet-time. "Slide me the Master Pen! Maybe there's someway I can help her with it."

Meg took out the Pen and set it down where the metal met the ground. On the smooth silver, the Pen easily slid down and straight to Jack.

"Got it."

Without waiting another moment, Meg took off after Chase.

"Let's see," Jack muttered, holding up the Pen. "What can I use…? The Hodoku Mouse? No, this wasn't a mistake. The RioReverso? No, that would turn her into genetic code. The Moby Morpher? No, that would just change her appearance, not heal her…Hmm…"

In the mean time, Meg appeared in front of Chase like a little bolt of lightning and let him know what she thought of him.

"How could you do that? You can't even get the Master Pen from her because she doesn't have it anymore! What is your problem? How could you hate someone so much? Can't you come up with any other solution other than violen…"

Chase smacked Meg across the head and knocked her to the side, continuing into the forest.

"Little freak," he muttered. "I wasn't fighting for the Master Pen."

"Hey! Get back here!" Meg screamed. She appeared in front of him again. "What do you mean you weren't fighting for the Master Pen? What were you fighting for? That?" Meg pointed to the envelope clenched in his hand, gradually absorbing blood. "Because that's just stupid. You can kill someone over a piece of paper!"

Chase went to send Meg soaring, but this time Meg dodged. In bullet-time, she tried to pry his hand open to get the letter, but she wouldn't have had the strength in real time to do so.

"Mind your own business, you impetuous, obnoxious little brat," he snapped at her viciously.

"This IS my business!" Meg screamed. "Miss Seek is my dentist and my buddy, and you can't just…"

Chase grabbed her by the collar mid-sentence and lifted her off her feet. He could tell by the way she shook violently that she was struggling in bullet-time, but there was no way to escape.

"_If _it will shut you up and make you go away, then we both wagered information. I won, so I won this information. Patience was trying to win something similar. But, we were _fighting_ over past incidents, all of which are too numerous and complicated for your tiny, underdeveloped, Jell-O cup of a brain to understand!"

With that, Chase literally tossed her over his shoulder, through a burning tree, and all the way back to the edge of the crater.

Meg patted a fire out of one of her dreads before checking in with Jack.

"How is she?" Meg asked.

"Well, at the very least she's alive," called up to her. "Though, I don't know how that's even possible. The only problem is, I don't know how to wake her up. She'll probably die pretty soon, actually, since…"

"No!" Meg screamed. "You _can't_ let her die! C'mon, Jack, you're the Evil Genius here! Use the Master Pen! There _must_ be something you can do!"

"Emphasis on the 'evil' part," Jack said over his shoulder, though he couldn't see Meg through the still-dense smoke and steam.

Meg sat back and went into bullet-time to think. She, too, thought of all the Shen Gong Wu that might fix Patience, but she came to the same conclusions as Jack had. She tried to think of all the practical methods, too, but nothing seemed useful.

"Who saves the doctor when the doctor's dying?" Meg muttered.

Just then, a thought occurred to her.

"Chase stays immortally young with that soup…Wuya stays immortal by her Heylin magic…Dojo is almost immortal by Xiaolin Magic…"

She came out of bullet-time and called down to Jack.

"I have an idea! Make a sketchbook, and draw some kind of magic _thingy_ that will keep Miss Seek alive! Just be creative!"

"I can't draw freehand," Jack said flatly.

"Then, _search_ for something on the pen!" Meg exclaimed.

Jack, sitting beside the just barely breathing Patience, held up the Master Pen and scrolled through the list of every single object in existence.

"Cool, this thing can make tanks," he noticed idly. "I bet it can make SMARTs, too," he added with a devious and evil grin.

After a moment, he came upon something that he knew would work. The problem was: he wasn't sure if Patience would ever forgive him.

"Well, the dying can't be choosers," he sighed. "Master's Pen!"

Meg saw the flash of green light well up. Its power cleared the smoke and steam from the area. The stream of ink poured out and took on the shape of the thing that would so ironically save Seek.


	21. Part Three: The Rise of Jack Spicer

**PART THREE**

"**The Rise of Jack Spicer"**

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Chapter 21. The Fall of Seek Patience

The world was a horrible place. Seek wanted to die. She wanted to escape all the pain and all her problems and just drift away. She couldn't breath, she couldn't see, she couldn't think. But, she could feel. The pain was so great that her nervous system was ready to shut down, just to end the suffering. There were voices speaking words she didn't understand, and everything was like a dream. Some of it was a dream. She hallucinated during her bouts of consciousness, but she knew she wasn't really moving. She only hoped she would die. She wasn't even thinking about the possibility of an afterlife- she just wanted it all to end.

But, then, a strange taste filled her mouth. She recognized the smell and recalled her youth, as well as feelings of outrage. She wanted to spit it out, but she didn't have the strength to do anything other than lie there and imagine drowning.

Suddenly, she assumed she was dead. But, she realized that she was assuming, and therefore could not be anything other than alive. All the pain drained away. All her senses cleared. Her vision returned and she understood the words around her. Her memory came back to her, along with her will to live, push on, and even fight again.

Something was amiss.

She felt a little _too_ good. She hadn't felt like this in…almost a decade.

Patience looked up and saw Jack Spicer- who was overdue for a shave- kneeling beside her. He looked worried, but in a disgruntled way.

"Hey, hey, hey, Evil Partner," he said with a weak smile. "Looks like you're back in action."

Slowly, Seek pushed herself to a sitting position. The battle returned to her. The pain she went through to win, only to lose in the end.

"Jack…" she said slowly, looking around. She wondered about the crater they were sitting in. She also wondered why she was covered in blood but hadn't a scratch on her. "What happened?"

"That's what _I_ want to know," Jack replied, getting to his feet. "Don't you remember?"

Seek looked up slowly, and then looked to the sky where she had been fighting.

"I do," she began. "Once I turned into the Dragon of Metal, I thought there was no way he could touch me. I don't know how he broke through my armor…It wasn't right. But, he climbed inside and…" She paused and broke off her speech, filled with more hate than ever. "Bastard," she muttered. "He was relentless. He beat me from the inside. An element warrior is the heart of their Dragon, and he forced me right out, didn't he?"

"Yeah, that was creepy," Jack admitted, scratching the back of his head. "Anyways, since you're better now, I think we should get out of here. I'm keeping this, though," he held up the Master Pen, "since it _is_ rightfully mine after the last showdown, and I _did_ save your life."

Seek took Jack's hand and he helped her to her feet.

"You certainly did, Jack," she said quietly. "I feel incredible! I can't remember the last time I felt this way. I could fight Chase all over again! What did you do?"

With an almost ashamed expression, Jack looked down at his hand.

"What?" Patience asked.

She looked down sharply to see what he was holding.

It was a light, wooden bowl with a dark rim. There was a sip of light green liquid left over, with what looked like scales floating in it.

Patience's eyes went wide. She backed away from Jack quickly and nearly lost her balance.

"No! That's not what I think it is!"

"It was the only thing I could do," Jack said, insulted. "It was this, or let you die a painful death. Do you want to give Chase that kind of satisfaction?"

"Nor _this_ kind of satisfaction!" Seek screamed out. She held her hand out, cried the command, "Metal!" and a swirl of perfectly reflective metal grew from her hand. It hardened into a flat, circular disk- a mirror. Seek held it close to her face and peered at her eye.

Her face was ten years younger- she was twenty five again! And, sure enough, her pupil had reduced to a reptilian sliver, and her iris had changed to dark gold.

The mirror slipped from her hand and shattered on the metal-coated ground.

"Jack…" she began slowly, raising her eyes to him. "You should have let me _die_!"

In her rage, the ugly side effects of the potion for eternal youth took control. With a horrible roar, Seek began the quick but ghastly transformation. Her armor and clothes ripped away, and in a flash she was entirely changed.

"I've spent my adult life trying to escape Chase Young!" she screamed in a gravelly, dragonized voice. "But now…!"

Seek was a maroon dragon with black, angular stripes. She had a long body and she walked with her knees almost to the ground and her ankles high. She had a long, narrow snout and long, slender horns that swept back from her brow. Her spine scales were squat, but it only stood to reason. Chase's long hair resulted in long spine scales, as Seek's short hair resulted in similar scales.

"Holy Hell on Earth!" Jack screamed out when he saw dragon-Seek. He jumped back with a boost from his Jetpack, back to the edge of the crater.

"What HAPPENED?" Meg shrieked, staring at Miss Seek, completely aghast.

"I gave her some of Chase's potion to keep her alive," Jack explained. "But, she's not exactly thrilled to be here! C'mon, Meg! Forget about her! Let's just get back to taking over the world! Master Pen! SMART bot!"

Jack held out the Pen and, with a bright green flash, ink poured forth to produce a brand new SMART bot. Jack flew to the cockpit, Meg under his arm, and snapped the blast shield shut just as dragon-Seek landed on it.

"I'll get you for this, Jack Spicer!" she shrieked. "And when Chase finds out, you'll be lucky if I get to you first!"

She jumped down from the window right as Jack started up the engine. Meg leaned forward and watched her disappear into the forest, tears brimming up in her eyes.

"Now what's going to happen to her?" she whimpered. "Chase already said he was going to kill her if she was still alive! Now they're going to be fighting over that stupid soup! Oh, no fair!"

"I said don't worry about it," Jack snapped. "Evil up, Meg! We've got bigger, more important things to deal with! Like InterPol. And the UN. And…God."

"But, Miss Seek is my friend…"

"News flash, Meg!" Jack suddenly cried out. "The only reason Patience never flipped out on you or threw herself out a window is because, as I can see by your perfectly aligned teeth, you were a considerable source of income!" Jack, as he spoke, suddenly realized that he was about to fulfill the 'Evil' in his title. "_I _am your only friend, Meg! I'm the last one in the world you've got, and I'm the only one who'll look out for you!"

Jack had flashbacks to the other evil villains in his life that used similar plots. This was how Wuya got a hold on Raimundo, how Chase caught Omi, and how Hannibal Bean only thought he tricked Raimundo.

Meg's eyes were watery and pathetic again, but this time for the sake of being touched.

"You really mean it?" she asked, her hands clenched.

Jack shrugged slowly, looking ahead.

"Yeah. I mean, I'd be assassinated by now if I didn't have you around."

"Oh, Jackie!" Meg cried out, leaping forward and throwing her arms around Jack.

"Yeah, yeah," Jack muttered, trying to control the SMART.

"Oh, by the way," Meg said when she finally released him. "Changing Chopsticks!"

Out from Meg's pocket sprang a bulging burlap sack. Meg stuck the Chopsticks inside and opened the rim.

"I forgot to mention that I picked up a few things in Chase's palace," she giggled. "I got the Eagle Scope, Fountain of Hui, WuShan Geyser, and the Serpent's Tail. Wuya was stealing them."

Jack stared into the bag, amazed at his good fortune.

"Holy crap, Meg," he muttered. "How did you get them from Wuya?"

Meg grinned as she reached down into the bag. She pulled up the puzzle box to display for Jack.

"I used the Master Pen to make another one of these," she laughed.

Jack just about cried.

"You're the best, Meg! When we get back to the Mother SMART, I'm making…oh, wait a second! The Mother must have fallen apart, too. Shit! My sentries! I'm gonna have to repost hundreds of SMARTs before the world starts to assume that I'm just giving up or something! Damn…"

Just then, as they flew over southern Russia, a light started beeping on the display board.

"Oh, give me a break! Now?"

"What is it?"

"That's the Wu detector. Something just revealed itself in Iceland. Well, I suppose that with the monks sworn out of the game and Wuya back in her box, no one's going to be out looking for it. Still…"

Jack tapped his chin for a moment in thought.

"I know. Here," Jack changed the screen to a map of the world, accompanied by a number of exponential charts. "Take a look at this. For the last four years, I've been recording the frequency, location, and power of Wu that have revealed themselves. When the Shen Gong Wu first started to appear, they appeared very quickly, one after another. Also, none of them were particularly impressive Wu. The Mantis Flip Coin, the Third Arm Sash- nothing outstanding. But, as time went on, they gradually revealed themselves less and less frequently, for a while maintaining a rate of about one Wu every seven to twelve days. Now, they're coming about even _less_ normally, and constantly increasing in power. Now we've got Wu that vaporize your enemies, turn you into pure energy, and unlock the knowledge of the universe. So, with all this information, as well as a sequenced chart of where the Wu were hidden, I've come up with a computer program that will predict all the likely locations of Wu before they activate. Also, it can predict how powerful that Wu will be. After the Master Pen, I can't imagine what will come next!"

"Why are you showing me this?" Meg asked.

"I'm showing you," Jack went on, "because I want to put you in charge of the Shen Gong Wu, as well as finding them _all_. I may not need Wu to take over the world, but it's like any other collection: once you begin, it's hard to just stop. McDonalds makes a fortune off that, y'know."

"Tell me about it," Meg said gravely. "I once spent a whole year collecting every single Teenie Beanie. That was…unfortunate."

"Mm-hmm, anyway, that's what I'm gonna put you up to. In the meantime, I need to resurrect all the SMARTs and _you_ need to make sure no one tries to sniper me down while I do it!"

Meg gave him a smart, three fingered salute.

"Yes, Sir!" she said.

"You do realize that you're using the Boy Scout salute, right?" Jack asked as he created a new Hodoku Mouse to fix his SMARTs. Meg just giggled and nodded.


	22. Revenge is Sweet and Spicy

Chapter 22. Revenge is Sweet and Spicy

With the Master Pen, there was nothing Jack Spicer could not do. He rebuilt all the SMART bots and made them even better than before. He used Meg Kake's bullet-time reflexes to upgrade the SMART's reaction time. He had Evil followers, and his new Mega SMARTs were stationed all over China, with the Xiaolin Dragon's imprisoned in their own temple.

"Don't need to even bother trying to take their Shen Gong Wu," Jack laughed when he first locked them up, "because I've invented _this_! I call it the Omni-Wu. Just say the name of the Wu, and it uses that power! It can copy absolutely any Wu that's activated thus far!"

The new Mother SMART was stationed in Great Britain, casting a several mile shadow from above Buckingham palace. Jack strode to the controls deck, the Master Pen gripped in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

"I don't care if they just won their independence!" Jack snapped. "They're not the only ones about to join the Spicerist Empire! If they don't surrender within twenty-four hours, make a crater of 'em! That's an order!"

Jack snapped the phone shut and tucked it into his pocket with a smug grin.

"Ah, taking over the world is even better than I imagined. My own array of Evil officers to do my bidding, a hundred thousand Evil robots, and the whole planet it the palm of my hand!" He finished with a maniacal laugh, throwing his fists in the air as a SMART sunk the last ship in the British Navy. "And, on top of it all, I'm independent! No Wuya, no Chase, no Hannibal Bean, no Patience! Just me! I'm top dog! I'm the last Master of Evil standing!"

His cell phone rang, _again,_ just before he reached the climax of his evil rant.

"Now, if only I could be in fifty places at once," he muttered.

"You can be!" Meg said, bouncing into the room suddenly. "Just use the Ring of the Nine Dragons! Then there can be up to _nine_ of you?"

"Only it would be nine dithering, blithering freaks," Jack reminded her.

"Oh, yeah…" Meg said slowly, scratching her chin. "I'll be right back."

She disappeared, as though poorly edited out of existence, and ran off in bullet time. Jack rolled his eyes and answered his phone.

"Spicer," he said.

"I am going to make you suffer in a way you never thought imaginable in hell!" snarled the lethal voice of Patience.

Jack snapped the phone shut instantly and shuddered as he put it away.

"Ugh! I hate those calls."

Meg reappeared in front of him, holding the Ring of the Nine Dragons and the Reversing Mirror.

"I consulted the Fountain of Hui and the Eagle Scope, and I know just what to do. If you use the Ring of the Nine Dragons with the reversing Mirror, you can make up to nine copies of yourself, the only difference is this: with the reversing mirror, you don't get dumber and dumber with each copy. Instead, you _improve_! Pretty cool, huh? Imagine being nine times smarter and generally _better_ than you are now? That would be out of control!"

"Give me those Wu!" Jack exclaimed, holding out his hand. Meg smiled and handed them to him with a squeak.

"Hmm, I wonder if there would be any negative repercussions…Nah! Ring of the Nine Dragons! Reversing Mirror!"

With a dim flash, Jack Spicer divided himself into four. And, just as Meg said, he didn't reduce in the slightest.

The four Jacks were spiffy and sleek, to say the least. Though each retained the bright red hair, pale skin, and red eyes of the original, each one wore a different colored trench coat. One kept the traditional black, one had a Wuya-red coat, one had Chase-green, and one had Patience-dark gold. Jack was better built, too. He already had a mature body for being twenty, but now he was just ripped. He was possibly a little taller, too.

"This is more like it," said the Jack in red.

"I feel like I could take on the rest of the solar system," laughed the Jack in dull gold, throwing a few mock punches in the air.

"I have a better plan," said the first Jack, still in black. "I say it's time we take out our personal revenge! It's time we went and repaid all the humiliation and disgrace we've suffered over the years!"

"You're right," said the Jack in green. "We've put up with their crap for too long now! The insults, the bad puns…"

"And the over-all verbal harassment and physical punishment!" the Jack in red finished.

"What are you going to do?" Meg asked, her hands behind her back, her feet together, and her head to the side.

"My simple and small friend," said the Jack in green as he put a hand on her shoulder. "Isn't it obvious? We four will enact our revenge, our personal vendettas, against all those who ever dared to shame the name Jack Spicer!"

"Wuya!"

"Chase Young!"

"The Xiaolin Monks!"

"Katnappe, Vladd, Cyclops, and even Master Monk Guan!"

"Here," said the first Jack, "take these." He handed Meg the Ring and Mirror. "While we're gone, divide yourself up nine times, send a copy to every corner of the world, and watch over the fleet. Take only defensive action- I'm saving all the offensive fun for myself!"

"Keep an eye out for new Wu, too," added the red Jack, "though the computer isn't forecasting any for a few more days."

"Now, where to start?" one wondered aloud.

"I know just the enemy," gold Jack grinned. He reached into the Shen Gong Wu bag and withdrew Wuya's puzzle box. "And, I know just the place, too."

The four Jack's left in a regular SMART, with only the Master Pen and the puzzle box. Meg watched them leave, greatly impressed by the enhanced Jack. Then, without waiting another moment, Meg pulled on the Ring of the Nine Dragons and held up the Reversing Mirror.

"Sorry, Jack, but I have some plans of my own!"

Nine Meg Kake's are a sight to behold. They were all dressed in bright, neon colors, with multicolored dread locks and wild jewelry. Each had a letter of the name 'Meg Kake' on her belt buckle, though one was just a blank and one was an evil smiley.

"And now, listen up," said the Meg with the "M" on her belt. Here's the plan! The two of you cover North America. You stay here with "E" here and cover Europe. You two: Asia. And you," she pointed to the last one, "you keep an eye on South America, Africa, and Australia, just incase. In the meantime, _I_ am going to check in on Miss Seek, even though Jack _clearly_ doesn't case. Now, go! Go! Go!"

While the nine Meg's spread themselves around the world, the four Jack's were en route to a familiar place.

"Make sure she doesn't escape once the box is open," said the red Jack. "Other wise, she'll just fly away."

"I've got the Omni-Wu right here."

The Omni-Wu, it should be noted, looks exactly like a TV remote.

The regular SMART landed near a range of gray mountains and dying trees. It was a barren, wasteland of a place, but any one who knew anything about Wuya would recognize it.

"Time to get your reward," the red Jack laughed as he opened the puzzle box, "for all the kindness and fairness you showed me over the years.

The purple, translucent ghost of Wuya drifted from the box, rolling through the air as though in a daze.

"What…happened?" she asked in her unpleasant, haggard voice. "Where am I? How did I get here?"

"We've decided that it's time you got what you deserved," said the green Jack.

"Jack? Why are there four of you? What are you up to?"

"This! Omni-Wu! Reversing Mirror! Serpent's Tail!"

In a flash, Wuya was once again transformed to her human form. She appeared in a vibrating halo of green light and dropped to the ground. When she got to her feet again, she tried to get back on Jack's good side.

"Why, Jack, I didn't realize you wanted to join forces again," she said with a sly grin.

"I don't," said the gold Jack. "Do you think I'm an idiot?"

"I only changed you back because we can't do a thing to ya as a ghost."

"And don't even try to fight back- we took all your powers. Though, that would make it more entertaining."

"Do…what?" Wuya asked slowly.

The four Jacks took a step back and put their hands in the air.

"Rise, my rock creatures!" the cried out in unison.

Four green-eyed, growling rock monsters rose from the ground below each Jack, lifting him up on their shoulders.

"I want the whole world to know about _this_," Jack laughed. "Master Pen!"

The green Jack created a simple laptop and web-cam, which he designed to hover about and capture the whole scene on a live web-cast.

"This is for when you first turned on me!" the Jack in black cried out. He rushed at Wuya with the rock creature and pummeled her to the ground.

"This is for ripping the roof off my evil lair!"

"This is for destroying my time machine!"

"This is for trying to vaporize, crush, and otherwise torture me!"

"This is for calling me an idiot, and all those other names!"

"This is for abandoning me for Chase Young!"

"This is for ganging up on me with Hannibal Bean!"

"This is for double-crossing me at every turn!"

"This is for smacking me around!"

"This is for taking general pleasure from my pain!"

"This if for betraying me after just one season!"

"This is for _using me!_"

With every vengeful outburst, the Jacks wailed on Wuya. They chased her around the barren field, kicked her around like a soccer ball and threw her through the air, making nasty jokes about her the whole time.

Finally, when the Jacks had had enough for the time being, they locked the unconscious Wuya in the stomach cage of a rock monster. The flying web-cam drifted down and rested on the ground outside the cage. Gold Jack kneeled down and typed in a scrolling banner.

"Wuya, evil Heylin witch, humiliated by Jack Spicer, Master of Evil and Earth. BEWARE, all who ever dared disgrace the name of Spicer: You are next!"

And, so it was.

The four Jacks traveled around the world to find every last person they could think of who ever dared to them wrong. Le Mime was all but vaporized, Cyclops was never seen again, and Katnappe was given a flea bath in a giant tub filled with angry dogs of the German Shepard and Rottweiler breed. Tubbimoura's 'Muffin Face' was unusually but cruelly put down, Vladd ended up hanging from the tip of the sword of an old USSR statue by his underwear elastic, and, the last Jack saw of his obnoxious cousin Megan, she was shrunken down to the size of a grain of rice and set free in a lab-mouse maze.

The Jacks even went back to the several towns he had gone to school at in his youth, and annihilated all the schools.

"School's out forever, Principal Brophey!" he laughed, firing another laser cannon.

Once they had returned to cruising altitude, the Jack in green crossed another set of names off the Spicer Evil Hit List.

"I think we've covered almost all of them," he said with dark satisfaction.

"Too bad we can't get at Hannibal Bean," said the Jack in dark gold, his feet up on the chair in front of him.

There was a pause, unbroken until the black Jack raised his forefinger.

"Actually, I think there might be a way. But, I don't think it's worth going through the trouble just to take out revenge."

"I know what you're thinking, and I agree. Besides, what could we even do to him? Cook him into a burrito?"

"We should," red Jack laughed.

"Do you have any idea how _nasty_ that would taste?" the green Jack exclaimed, laughing. "That would be like…ugh, I can't even think about it!"

"I dare you to eat a Hannibal Bean burrito," the gold Jack snickered.

"You're daring yourself," the green pointed out.

The gold Jack just rolled his eyes. "Anyway," he said, "who else is there?"

"Well, I think all we have left is, actually, Chase Young."

The Jack in black sighed faintly.

"I don't know, guys. You saw what he did to Patience."

"So? There's four of us here, and were smarter, faster, and stronger than ever before! We have the Omni-Wu and the Master Pen; he doesn't stand a chance!"

"So, what should we do to him?" asked the green Jack.

"I say we hose him down with lead-based, yellow paint," the gold Jack said, panning his hands out, envisioning the scene.

All the other Jacks turned and looked at him with quizzical expressions.

"…Why?" asked the red Jack.

"Two reasons. One, if we get a fire hose, it'll hurt like hell. Two, he's a yellow-bellied bastard!"

All four Jacks broke out in evil laughter, picturing the scene, too.

"We have to do something outright _cruel_," said the red Jack.

"After all the times he humiliated us!"

"There we were, idolizing him every step of the way, and he treated us like toxic waste!"

"Made fun of us! Called us names, knocked us around, and insulted us!"

"And the time he made me change Cyclops!" the Jack in black growled in a deep, deadly voice.

"Right! He may have been our Evil idol years ago, but we've outgrown that!"

"I, for one, am no longer impressed. He may be powerful, but he's not good enough for the Master Pen!"

"He's not good enough for Jack Spicer!"


	23. The Tao of Nutmeg Kake

Chapter 23. The Tao Nutmeg Kake!

The world was a place consumed by Spicerist propaganda, sentinel robots, and an ever-growing number of Heylin followers who pledged their allegiance to Jack via a 24 hour hotline in an attempt to secure their safety in the chaos. Jack promised that all who joined him would go unharmed by SMART bots, and that those who rebelled would be crushed to a fine, dusty pulp.

While Jack went about personally taking the final few areas still beyond his control, his accomplice, Meg, spread a message of her own.

The nine Megs had traveled around the world to maintain Spicerist power, but they were not operating by Jack's standards.

"Citizens of Earth! Weekends are now seven days long! The first Thursday afternoon till Monday of each month is now the official Rave Holiday! All drugs that were once illegal are now encouraged, just keep them away from me! There will be no more mucking around with money! Everything is now free! Everything! Payment will come in the form of whatever the hell you need or want! Purge yourselves, earthlings!"

"All personality altering prescription drugs are now banned! Riddilin, Nospaz, and Hypovent shall never be used on any child ever again!"

"Your national colors are now neon green, neon orange, blood red, and black! Have some free strobe lights! Glow sticks for all! Your national anthem is the same, it's just a techno remix! You leader will be elected by whoever is left standing after a week-long rave! Last to dance him or herself into exhaustion wins! Your national slogan must be something to the effect of "In Meg We Trust," or "Jack Spicer Rocks!"

"School is now officially annihilated! All those who refuse to rave and follow the new rules will be sent back to High school- no matter how old you are! No one needs to learn how to spell "onomatopoeia" ever again, nor learn what it means! No math, either! Anyone caught trying to use, solve, or teach math will be sprayed with liquid extract poison ivy! Actually, better make Mace. Mace, with an electrical current. Aw, hell, I just send you to stand in line at Six Flag for nine hours listening to that outrageous theme song."

"You there, in the t-shirt! I hate that band! Get out of my country!"

The Meg in Switzerland paused and considered what she and her copies were doing.

"Jack should have just done _this _in the first place," she said. "Why did he have to use force to take over the world? He should have just promised everyone everything they've ever wanted!"

Meanwhile, the Meg with the "M" on her belt had set off in a Mini SMART to find Miss Seek. Despite their small size, Minis traveled at a respectable rate once turned loose.

She flew straight to the land of Nowhere, unaware that the four Jack Spicer's were also headed the same way. Meg landed the Mini a good distance from the palace to avoid being seen and made her way inside by bouncing up the cliff edges and springing right in through an eye of the beastly carved entrance.

No more than ten minutes after Meg went inside, the Jacks landed in their regular SMART right in front of the entrance. They hopped out and two stood on each side of the SMART.

"Let's let ourselves in," said the Jack in red.

Meg darted up a flight of cold marble stairs, wondering where Patience could possibly be. She checked in the throne room and in the room with the great big spiral on the floor, but there seemed to be no one around.

Coming out of bullet-time, Meg stopped to listen for voices. She heard the gurgle of the many waterfalls and pools, but no voices.

Suddenly, she was thrown to the floor and squished against the stone. A big, hungry-looking jaguar had her pinned and was growling in her ear.

"Nice kitty…" Meg said slowly, straining to look back at it. "Do _you_ know where Miss Seek is?"

There were other jungle cats around her, too, glaring at her as though waiting to have a taste of the little hors-d'oeuvre. But, suddenly the cats all looked up at once, as though being silently hailed. Amid the chorus of quiet growls, the jaguar picked Meg up by the back of her shirt in its jaws and bounded up a flight of stairs with her. They passed through a set of doors and entered the dining room.

Meg waved to Chase, recalling the story Jack told her once about the time a tiger came and snatched him right out of the bathtub. Chase was seated at his table, surrounded with the most delicious-looking foods that no one seemed to ever eat. Only, this time, he reclined his chair on its back legs and had his feet up on the table.

"I was looking for you!" Meg exclaimed, writhing in the jaguar's grip. "What happened to Miss Seek? You better not have hurt her! Not again!"

"No, tiny one," Chase said calmly, "I've taken good care of Seek Patience. She is no longer a concern, nor a threat."

Meg finally got her feet against the cat's collarbone. From there, she tilted herself down and pedal-kicked the cat in the jaw, in bullet-time, until it choked and was forced to release her.

"What did you do to Miss Seek?" Meg screamed, lunging towards Chase.

Chase put his hand up and Meg stopped in midair. With a wave, Meg was thrown back towards the door. The jungle cats didn't go after her again, but they were on guard.

Just then, someone came through another doorway hidden in the shadows of the pillars along the perimeter of the room. As she got to her feet Meg didn't recognize the person at all. She was carrying one of those silver martini shakers and a glass with a slim stem on a tray.

"Oh, hi there, Meg," she said as she set the glass down and took the mixer in both hands. "I didn't realize you would be stopping by. Sorry, I don't think you're old enough to have one of these."

Meg's jaw dropped and she bent at the waist at a right angle until her knuckles nearly touched the ground. She stared with one eye wide open and one twitching slightly.

"No. Way," she gasped slowly. "_What happened?"_

Chase grinned and folded his hands in his lap.

"Quite a pleasant improvement, isn't it? Nutmeg Kake, meet Good Seek Patience."

Good Seek looked like a young, spunky Julie Andrews. She wore a long blue dress with the fringe of many puffy petticoats just visible above her black slippers. The dress had a pale flower pattern on it, and she wore a crisp, white apron with a deep pocket in the front and a big bow in the back. She was just as reserved as ever, with her collar buttoned up to her neck and long sleeves that buttoned at the wrist. But, judging by the shape of her torso, she may have been wearing some kind of corset. She was smiling broadly with her mouth open a little, and her big, brown eyes seemed to sparkle with the sheer joy of being alive. She wore very light makeup and had in a pair of tiny earrings.

Chase looked pretty happy about the new arrangement.

"What the hell?" Meg screamed out, still almost unable to move. "Miss Seek! What happened to you? You're all…goody. What happened to the regular you?"

"Oh, you mean Evil Seek?" Good Seek asked as she poured the drink. "She's back in the YinYang world somewhere. I feel bad for her, but she had it coming. She didn't use Novocain, you know," Good Seek added in a gossipy manner, holding the back of her hand against her cheek secretively. "Not only that, but she never actually worked for WalMart. She just likes to tell people that to freak them out. She was _really_ a student here in China until her twenties, when she went off to get a medical degree…"

"I DON'T CARE!" Meg interrupted her, leaping across the table and landing on Seek. She grabbed her by the apron straps and balanced her feet against her hips. "Where's the real Miss Seek? I like Evil Seek!"

Chase reached out and swatted Meg away, knocking her to the floor like a stray crumb. Meg was flat on the floor for a moment, and Good Seek backed away to help her up.

"Well, I _don't_ like Evil Seek," Chase growled, leaning over Meg. "And I refuse to spend the rest of eternity battling the Dragon of Metal over _my_ potion when I can have this," he said, nodding towards Good Seek. He finished his strangely green martini in one swig and upended the skewered olive on Meg's head. It lodged in her dreads.

"Get her out of here," Chase ordered the cats. "I don't want my day off interrupted again!"

It was then that the four Jacks arrived and used the SMART bot to drill down the front gate. A tooth-shaking tremor ran through the whole palace and those same damn ceiling tiles dropped from above and landed in Chase's food.

"Honey, I'm HOME!" Jack's voice rang through the palace.

Chase knocked his chair over as he leapt up and flew right over the table.

"I'm going to kill him," he muttered as he and a heard of jungle cats raced to meet the intruders.

Meg and Good Seek stared at each other for a moment.

"So," Meg said slowly, "you work for Chase now."

Good Seek smiled broadly and folded her hands in her apron.

"Yeah, but I like it. I miss my little house in Germany, though…" Good Seek paused and looked at Meg, who wore a very pathetic and disappointed expression. "It _is_ too bad that Evil Seek got in that fight with Chase. She's so proud."

"Yeah, what was that fight all about, anyway?" Meg asked, holding her hands out to the side briefly.

Good Seek looked pleased to have a chance to tell a story.

"Well," she said, sitting on the arm of Chase's chair, "I don't know if you know this already, but Evil Seek used to be Chase's student."

"I did not know that," Meg said, intrigued. "Do go on."

"But, that was _long_ before you were born. Anyway, Seek Patience used to be a Xiaolin monk, thus the title of the Dragon of Metal. But, no one could figure out why she was the _only_ Dragon. You see, Seek was born far too early. For some reason, her being the sole Dragon alive at the time made it easier for Chase to draw her to the dark side. I suppose _you _were born too _late_," she added on the side. "So, Chase knew that Metal was the key to defeating the other elements, but he didn't know when they would come around. I won't tell you all the dark details of how it happened, but Chase used Seek's fear of being weak to gain more and more control over her. But, one day, after years and years on the Heylin side, Seek up and left. She went to medical school and left all her training and old ways behind. She practically ceased to be the Dragon of Metal! But, _very_ long story short, did you see the paper Chase had after he defeated Evil Seek?"

Meg nodded.

"I'm sure you didn't see what was on it," Good Seek continued. "As it turns out, those are divorce papers."

"Say what?"

"JUST KIDDING! I just wanted to make sure you were still paying attention. _Actually, _Evil Seek knows Chase's weakness, and Chase knows Seek's weakness. That paper was Seek's oath that she would never tell _anyone_ Chase's weakness, under _any _circumstances, or suffer punishment of…well, I probably shouldn't repeat it."

"You can tell me!" Meg exclaimed.

"No," Good Seek sighed. "A young girl like you doesn't need to be bothered with such unpleasantness. But, anyway, that's what that was all about."

Meg cocked her head to the side, still trying to get the olive out of her hair.

"So, why did Chase turn you good?"

Good Seek laughed sweetly.

"Isn't it obvious? Evil Seek was a bi-atch! Without that potion, I'll revert back into a dragon and then it's _goodbye_ Normal Life! But, Chase has agreed to keep me around, just as long as I always answer to him first. I don't mind, though. I like Chase."

Meg finally ripped the toothpick and olive free. She then shuddered and glared at Seek in disbelief.

"How can _anyone _like that pig-dog?" Meg suddenly threw her hands in the air. "Ugh! Seek, c'mon! Use a little girl power! You don't need to wait on that bastard hand and foot! Make your own potion! All you need is a dragon! Go get…get…Dojo or something! That book had the recipe in it…"

"First of all, that's _not_ the complete recipe. There are three ingredients left out. Do you really think something as secretive, powerful, and evil as that would just be printed up in a book? Besides, Chase already got Dojo."

"Well, then, use the Master Pen to make…wait, Chase already got Dojo?"

Good Seek nodded once with a happy-go-lucky grin. "I don't think he's turned him into soup _quite yet_, though."

Meg raised her eyebrows and put her hands in her pockets.

"Oh, wow. I wonder why the Xiaolin Monks haven't showed up yet…Oh well. So, Chase and Evil Seek were fighting over their weaknesses."

"Well, that, and an old grudge," Good Seek said with a giggle. "Chase once posted something of Seek online, and she _never_ forgave him. That's what they were arguing over when she first went missing."

Meg's eyes brightened and an evil grin spread across her face.

"Chase posted something of Seek online?" she asked greedily. "What was it?"

Suddenly there came a crash from the other room, so Meg and Good Seek decided to go check on the boys.


	24. Sitting In His Nowhere Land

Chapter 24. Sitting In His Nowhere Land

Chase met the Jacks from a stone archway over the front staircase with his arms crossed, flanked by dozens of jungle cats.

"_Now_ what are you doing?" Chase demanded. "And, why do I have to deal with four times the Albino freak show?"

The Jack in red pointed up at Chase sternly.

"Now you listen to me, you reptilian freak of nature! Soon, the entire world will be under my control!"

"But there's just one cheery little piece of property that I can't simply wave a gun at to capture," the green Jack continued.

"And it's your Land of Nowhere!" the Jack in dark gold finished. "I've got the Land of Somewhere, and the Land of Neither Here nor There, but it's your middle ground that I've come to take!"

Chase rolled his eyes.

"Oh, give me a break," he muttered under his breath.

The Jack in black pulled out the Omni-Wu and held it up.

"See this, you semi-suave, sorry excuse for serious villain?" he shouted up. "It'll be all too easy to trap you in the Sphere of Yun again, and then the Land of Nowhere will automatically be mine!"

Chase, for one, was sick of these games. He was sick of Shen Gong Wu, he was sick of relentless enemies trying to prove their worth, and he was sick of the sound of Jack's voice, _even_ as an adult.

"But, you know that won't work, because not only is it disgustingly unoriginal and uncreative, it's only temporary and I'm bound to escape, again, anyway," Chase said in a bored voice. He gave a secret signal to his cats to get ready to pounce.

"Exactly," the Jack in black replied with a smirk. "I see we're finally thinking on the same page. Instead, I…"

Just then came the loud smash that brought Meg and Good Seek from the other room. The Jacks' regular SMART backed out from the opening it had smashed, widening the hole in the process and destroying more of the stone wall. In through the space came bouncing five Meg Kakes, each one with a letter of 'Kake' or the ':)' on her belt. Two Megs, the 'E' and the 'G', came leaping and rolling in through the eyes of the carved entrance. They were all giggles and techno music cranked up on their I-Poos.

"There's seven," the first Meg counted, standing just in front of Good Seek. "I'm eight, so where's the last me?"

Meg, knowing herself so well, looked to the last possible entrance: up. Everyone looked up along the tall, glass-like stone walls of the palace and out to the open sky. Sure enough, one sparkling speck came careening over the rim of the wall and freefell, screaming for joy and flailing her limbs as her dreads smacked her in the face.

"This can only end in a mess," the Jack in red muttered. "Omni-Wu: Ring of the Nine Dragons!"

The Meg falling through the air sort of evaporated and rejoined the other eight Megs, so there was no longer a Meg with a blank spot on her belt.

"…freak show…" the Jacks heard Chase muttering over the incessant chatter of the eight Megs.

"Hey, don't dis the Meg Kakes," the Jack in green said indignantly. "What's better than a bunch of bullet-dodging body guards?"

"Hey, listen up, soup breath," the Jack in dark gold continued. He started up his jet pack, the one that looked so much like the Heli-pack, and flew to hover level with Chase, about ten feet from the arched pathway. "Here's my plan: Clearly, I'm never gonna leave you alone until my name is on the deed to the Land of Nowhere! So, here're your options: hand over the territory now and save yourself the trouble of sippin' soup through a straw for the rest of eternity! Or, I shrink you down to the size of a grain of rice, lock you up in the Sphere of Yun, and let Meg keep you as a pet in between a similar-sized Televangelist and Muslim extremist!"

All the Megs, Good Seek, and even some of the jungle cats shuddered at the thought, but Chase found the threat amusing at best.

"_So_ short-sighted, Jack. Why don't you just turn around now and forget about the Land of Nowhere, because I'm never leaving this palace and you, very likely, will soon be assassinated and all your conquest will have been for naught. All Shen Gong Wu can be reversed and undone, and all your robots and machines will melt away at the whim of the Dragon of Metal."

The other three Jacks, too, were in the air with their jet packs. The green one shook a Meg off his leg before speaking up.

"The Dragon of Metal? What ever happened to her? Did ya eat her or something?"

Chase stuck his thumb out and pointed to Good Seek, standing at the upper landing of a flight of stairs just outside the dining room. She smiled shyly and waved to the Jacks. The Jacks, in turn, took on the most confused or disgusted expressions they ever used since Jack had first devised the inside joke that Hannibal Bean would meet his end in some sort of Mexican Food dish.

"What the hell happened?" the Jack in red muttered.

"I know! I know!" the first Meg shouted, raising her hand and waving frantically. "Chase threw the much cooler Evil Seek into the YinYang world and then yanked her out again real fast because only Evil Seek needs his potion!"

All of the sudden, the eight Megs went into bullet time simultaneously and, thinking more efficiently through the Ring of Nine Dragons and bullet time, carried out a group huddle that lasted about three millionths of a real time second.

"Group huddle!"

"So, only Evil Seek needs the potion?" asked one Meg.

"Yeah, but Good Seek is sticking around because she _likes_ Chase," answered another.

"Ew."

"That's what I said."

"But Miss Seek loathes Chase with a vengeance previously unknown to man!"

"I know, but this is _Good _Seek."

"Evil Seek is going to destroy him, resurrect him, and destroy him again if she ever gets out of the YinYang world!"

"_When_ she gets out."

"And Chase knows it!"

"But, why does he keep Good Seek around? I wouldn't!"

"Because Good Seek is _still_ the Dragon of Metal, so Jack's robots don't stand a chance!"

"Oh, no! We have to warn Jack!"

"I'm not so sure! Evil Seek was all about fighting and destroying things, but…"

"But Good Seek can't squish a lima bean with apologizing to it first!"

"Does Chase know that?"

"I don't think so. I think he thinks Good Seek will do whatever he tells her."

"Sheesh. _Somebody_ doesn't know the first thing about women."

"Never incur their wrath?"

"No, that's the second."

"Never swap their shampoo with Nair?"

"NO! You! Shut up! Good Seek won't destroy the robots because she hates fighting! And, she may be Good Seek, but she is still Seek, so she won't let Chase push her around!"

"So, Jack doesn't have to worry?"

"No! All he has to worry about is Evil Seek escaping."

"Why? All her hair fall out?"

"Because her incurred her wrath."

The Megs returned to real time together and began chattering to Jack all at once. It essentially sounded like: "…only Evil Seek needs his potion Jack don't worry about Good Seek she won't destroy the SMARTs but Evil Seek might if she gets out but she'll probably run Chase through a meat grinder first and if not that she'll trap him down for a root canal but then she might do that to you too because she can stop your robots though then again she hasn't defenses against the Shen Gong Wu…!"

There was silence for a moment, set off only by the faint humming of the Jacks' jet packs and distant churn of falling water.

"What did you just say?" the Jack in red asked slowly, flying a little closer to the herd of Megs.

Chase, though, heard it all and looked sharply to Good Seek. In a single powerful bound he was in front of her.

"Is that true?" he asked, his arms crossed. His plan _had been_ to fend off the SMART bots with Good Seek's Dragon powers.

Good Seek folded her arms, too, and looked down her nose at Chase with a faint grin.

"I, unlike you, would never lift a finger to harm another."

Chase figured that she wouldn't listen to logic from his point of view.

"If those robots remain in commission, you'll be indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths," Chase retorted. It was odd, he thought, that he was justifying _not_ killing.

"Not necessarily," Good Seek said without missing a beat. "If I destroy the SMARTs, then Jack will lose control of the world and he'll have no way to control the massive wars that will break out across the globe. I'll bet those SMARTs are the one thing standing between China and Taiwan right now."

Chase growled and smacked his hand to his forehead.

"Seek Patience: the bane of my existence!" he hissed as he discarded that plan and silently sought another.

"That'd make a good t-shirt," the Jack in green said, pointing sideways to Chase with both hands. "_But_," he went on, hovering beside the arch Chase walked along, "it looks like you just played your last card and…"

He was cut off abruptly when Chase did a fast spinning kick that knocked the Jack all the way to the opposite wall.

"I've decided to make a special exception for you, Spicer," he said with a snarl, "because normally I don't hit girls."

The Jacks' expressions went blank with glares.

"Just for that," said the Jack in black, "I'm going to accept that this is only temporary and lock you up anyway!" He held out the Omni-Wu. "Sphere of Yun!"

With a bright flash, Chase was once again trapped in the Sphere. He rolled his eyes and massaged his left temple slowly.

"Megs! Do your worst!" the Jack in red ordered.

Immediately, the eight Megs bounded up to the walkway like so many neon and striped kernels of popping popcorn and did their best to make Chase's life hell. Mostly, they sang, jumped on the Sphere, bounced off the sides, but a few went as far as to line up and moon him.

Chase, floating cross-legged in the Sphere, calmly just closed his eyes and, after looking to the sky once- probably to tell the after-life he was reconsidering immortality- drowned out all the noise and glowing neon around him.

A Meg stomping on the Sphere paused to look up to the Jack in black.

"I say we take him back to the Mother SMART!" she laughed, "and put him in a bird cage! We should keep a trophy collection of beaten enemies!"

"Or one of those lizard aquariums with a heat lamp!" said a another Meg.

"_You_ belong in an aquarium," one Meg giggled to another.

"No, _you_ do!" the Meg snapped back. They leapt at each other and rolled down the archway, all the way to Good Seek, who had to jump over them as she ran up to Chase.

"Oh, Jack!" she said reprimanding, seeing that Chase clearly wasn't going to respond to any external noise. "Is this really necessary?"

"Uh, yeah, it _is_, Snow White," the Jack in black said harshly, landing on the archway beside her. "And, I think it's also necessary that you two go your separate ways, because the last thing I need is Chase sending you on Easter Egg hunts for the Serpents Tail or Reversing Mirror. Which, P.S., I _have_ so don't even think about trying to steal them."

"Yeah, go back to Germany, Sister Maria!" the Jack in red laughed.

"That was Austria," a Meg snapped at him as she knocked a glow stick against the glass.

"Whatever! C'mon! Let's get back to the Mother SMART! The Land of Nowhere is tentatively mine, and we've only got a few more places to cover!"

So, just as suddenly as the Jacks and Megs had burst into the palace, they started up the regular SMART and summoned some Mini's to depart.

"Wait!" Good Seek called to the closest Jack. "What about all the jungle cats? There must be hundreds of them here!"

The Jack in green just shrugged.

"I don't care- they're certainly of no use to me. You keep them."

"Me?"

This was the one comment to which Chase physically responded, opening his eyes for just a moment to catch Good Seek before he was literally loaded into the trunk of a SMART. What would Good Seek do with an army of vicious warriors?

"Got enough leg room?" one smirking Meg asked from above before slamming Chase into darkness.

Though Chase was probably on fire internally by this point, he remained calm and smug on the outside and didn't respond to the Meg. He already had a series of potential plans formulating, and he had a suspicion that the Xiaolin monks would show up at his palace looking for Dojo, but they would find Good Seek. He knew it would be fascinating to see just who ended up fighting along side who in this battle against Jack Spicer.


	25. Close, But No Cigar

Chapter 25. Close But No Cigar

A pair of sixty-story silver, red, and black Mega SMART bots prevented the Xiaolin Monks from reaching Chase's palace for quite some time. When a third Mega arrived, the monks were forced to escape the battle and sneak by from a different route in disguise. They had to save a friend before they could go on trying to save the world.

"I hope Dojo is all right," Kimiko muttered, watching her feet as she walked.

"I can't believe the last thing was said to him was 'Dude, you're obsolete'!" Raimundo added.

"Now, don't say that, Rai," said Clay. "He's a pretty clever little dragon- I'm sure he's just fine."

Every looked at Clay with piercingly skeptical expressions.

"Yeah, Chase completely let him just slither out the door," Rai said with dark sarcasm.

"I'm just sayin' that ya never know," Clay muttered, kicking a rock a head of him with each step.

Once they were beyond the patrol of the Mega SMARTs, they noticed that more of Jack's robots had finally made their way into the Land of Nowhere. All the outrageous creatures that had once prowled the forests and canyons were gone or in hiding, and the monks had no trouble- for once- getting to the palace. In fact, they walked right in.

"Hello?" Omi called as they walked through the front entrance. "Anyone home?"

There were no jungle cats to pounce or even glare down at them.

"Where is everyone?" Kimiko asked.

"Well, judgin' by the SMART bots outside and the _gaping hole_ that was once the front gates, I'd say Jack's been here," Clay said sarcastically, tipping his hat back with his thumb.

"But, it doesn't look like there was a fight," Rai pointed out.

"Showdowns don't leave any wreckage," said Kimiko.

"Yeah, but I do not think Chase Young would enter a Xiaolin Showdown," Omi reminded them of Chase's low opinion of Wu. "Not unless there was a very important Shen Gong Wu…"

"Yeah, anyway," Raimundo interrupted, "Chase is gone, and so are his cats. No one has seen Seek Patience in, like, a week, so let's just FIND DOJO!"

Back on track, the monks spilt up to search the palace. Clay searched the dungeons while Kim and Rai searched for the stock room where Chase kept his potion. The door to his horde, though, was probably designed by the same people who keep the Declaration of Independence locked up and required a grand total of _ten_ dial combinations and hand-print identification to open.

"I wouldn't _want_ to find Dojo in there, anyway," Rai admitted bleakly after he and Kimiko stared at the door for about a minute.

Meanwhile, Omi wandered through the main rooms of the palace, searching for clues to what happened to both Dojo and Chase. All he found, however, was Good Seek.

He found her in a room of the palace he had never seen before. It was a semi-circle room, with one flat wall with tall, south-facing stain glass windows, and one arched wall that was lined with dozens of narrow mirrors. And the floor was just about invisible under all the jungle cats. They were _everywhere_, lazing in the sunlight or napping with their tails over their noses. And, in the very center of it all, facing the sunny windows, was an overstuffed easy chair.

"Um…hello?" Omi called out meekly. The second after he said this he realized that it was a stupid thing to get the attention of a hundred-plus sleeping jungle cats. But, to his surprise, they barely paid any attention to him.

"Hello? Someone there?" came a familiar but new voice. Gook Seek looked up from her book and peered around the back of her big chair. "Oh, hello," she said sweetly. "Are you looking for Chase? He's not here right now."

Omi slowly raised one eyebrow and twiddled his fingers a little.

"Pardon my asking, but who are _you_?"

In three extremely carefully placed jumps, Omi was beside the armchair. Good Seek explained the whole story- AGAIN!- in her cheery disposition and waited calmly for everything to quit swirling in Omi's big head.

"Oh, this is _most_ unexpected," he muttered. "So, do _you_ know what happened to Dojo?"

She didn't.

"I'm sure Chase knows, though," she assured him.

A big cat stirred beside Omi and he was forced to leap onto the back of Seek's chair as it swung a deadly paw through the air with a yawn.

"Now, aren't you just adorable?" Good Seek said with a quiet laugh. "Aren't you the one who's an orphan? That's just so sad." Seek paused, seeing Omi eye the cats. "Oh, here," he said. She twisted around in her chair to reach up, lift Omi, and let him sit on the broad arm of the chair. "Don't worry about them," she said calmly. "I fed them all until they could take no more and let them all know there was no need to be violent ever again."

"What happened to Chase?"

Good Seek went on to explain the whole, full story to Omi as best she knew. But, near the end, she paused abruptly and beamed at Omi. "You know," she said, starting another subject, "it's a shame that you had to start out by meeting Evil Seek. I certainly seemed evil at this point in my life. I used to be more like this, as I am right now, but that was a long time ago. But, my dark side became predominant and suddenly there was no time for anything as simple as friends or family. She was so obsessed with work and her studies that she never let anyone so much as buy her drink!"

"Why are you telling me this?" Omi asked quickly, a little confused.

"Because," Good Seek laughed slowly, "we're both missing the other half of our lives! And I don't mean Evil Seek. I, personally, would turn a cartwheel to have a family of my own, but…Oh well. I guess some people just…"

"I know what you mean," Omi replied. "For a long time, having a mother and a father was only in the rear of my mind. But, after all the new monks came to the temple, every New Year I noticed more and more just how much I longed for a _real_ family." Omi paused and recalled the cruel and misleading plot of fake robot parents that left him with mild emotional scarring. "But, I have Master Fung and the other monks…"

Suddenly, and quite spontaneously, both Good Seek and Omi burst into a flood of tears and lonesome cries that stirred most of the cats.

Clay, Kimiko, and Raimundo met back up near the entrance.

"Anything?"

"Nothing."

"Where's Omi."

Before anyone could even shrug, they heard the cries from the semi-circle room.

They went on a wild goose chase through the palace trying to find that one room, but it was well hidden. They lost the sound of voices to guide them, so they were lost within a few minutes.

But, luckily, one of the tigers found them. This was the first time such an encounter had ever been 'lucky'.

By the time they found Omi, it had been nearly ten minutes; plenty of time for plans to be plotted.

"Oh, good, you are here!" Omi exclaimed, running up to them quite excitedly. He wore the biggest, most sincere grin they had even seen, and his very essence just seemed joyful. "You must meet Good Seek! She is going to help us stop Jack Spicer! And, after this is all done, she is coming back to the temple so I will finally have a mother figure!"

After a moment for the perplexed and mystified expressions, the situation was again explained, along with the fact that Good Seek would never lift a finger in battle.

"I know where the YinYang yoyo is," she told them, "but I won't risk going back into the YinYang world: I do _not_ want to _ever_ be Evil Seek again. My dark side is defiantly in the YinYang world and, if you can get her to come out, she'll stop Jack."

Omi bounced up and hugged Good Seek.

"Isn't she the boon?"

"Bomb."

"Yes, and that," Omi laughed.

"Actually, Omi, 'boon' kind of works," Good Seek said as she rested him on her hip. This little piece of information just brightened Omi's day that much more.

"Omi," Kimiko said, holding out her hand, "we don't have time to stop Jack. We need to find _Dojo_!"

"Oh," Good Seek said, "the only way you're going to find Dojo is if you ask Chase. But, you'll have to get to Jack to do that. He's got Chase locked up. I'm sure Chase would trade Dojo back if you freed him."

Kimiko, Clay, and Rai smacked their hands to their foreheads and either sighed or groaned.

"Aw, now we hafta get all tangled up with the other villains again…why can't this just be one simple, straightforward rescue mission?" Clay complained.

"Because then it wouldn't be interesting," Rai answered flatly. "All right," he turned back to Good Seek, "where's the YinYang yoyo? Let's go convince Eva Braun- I mean Erzsebet Bathory- I mean Seek Patience!- to help us beat Jack."

Good Seek led them through the palace with Omi still clinging to her hip and a trail of about a dozen jungle cats behind. The statue where Chase hid his Wu was already shattered with only the base remaining.

"Yeah, he's already cleaned out," Rai said flatly.

"Ah, appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.," Seek said sagely. "That's from Aeschylus."

Reaching down into the cavity of the statue, Seek lifted the false bottom to reveal four more Wu.

"The Yin and Yang yoyo," she said as she handed them out to the monks, "the Hero Glass, and the Honest Argot. That last one is sort of an oxymoron, I know, but I'm sure something was lost in translation."

"Why is it an oxymoron?" asked Clay.

"Well, that Wu forces people to tell the truth, no matter what, and an 'argot' is like what Dr. Seuss would use- it's kind of a special slang or saying…"

"And what's the other one?" Raimundo demanded. "And how come we've never heard of any of these before? How did we miss them?"

"The other one," Seek said, "transforms a person for one whole day into their absolute prime self. Physically and mental, they turn into the ideal warrior or…well, the ideal whatever their profession is."

"I'll bet we missed them," Kimiko thought out loud, inspecting the Hero Glass, "because Chase probably knew where Dashi hid a lot of them, so he got to them first and deactivated them too quickly for Dojo to notice."

"Thanks for clearing that up, Walter Cronkite," said Rai. "So! Enough of that! Let's get Seek Patience out here and give Jack a whippin'!"

"Good luck, kids," Good Seek said as she unhooked Omi from her side and set him on the ground.

"Jungle cats," Omi said as he touched down, "make sure _nothing_ happens to Good Seek while we're gone!"

"Are we all set to go?" Clay asked, putting the Yin and Yang yoyos together.

Everyone nodded.

"YinYang yoyo!"

A spiraling portal to the other dimension opened for them, and all four leapt through. They left the Hero Glass and Honest Argot with Good Seek, knowing that the Wu would probably malfunction in the YinYang world anyway.

As usual, they were only outlines of their selves until the rolling smoke of the other world swept over them. The four then turned that odd reddish color. They started walking, though they were not entirely sure where to begin looking.

"How the heck are we going to find her?" Raimundo asked, looking around at the bizarre world that never ceased to confuse.

"We should try calling her office," Kimiko laughed.

"Yeah, let's make an appointment for a root canal!" Rai joked back. "That'll get her attention."

"You two! Concentrate!" Omi snapped, pointing at them accusingly. "Every moment we squander, Jack becomes stronger!"

"Dude, he already took over the world! He can't get much more powerful than that!"

"You know what I mean!"

They pressed on through the YinYang world, wandering for some time without any actual progress. Once in a while, something bizarre and ridiculous would happen, such as Kimiko suddenly being launched in the air like a rocket or an enormous, serpentine creature swimming by in rolling arches through what they thought was solid ground (if there is such a thing in the YinYang world).

They even found the prison where Hannibal Bean had been locked up for so long. The place, however, was destroyed. Nothing but gray rubble and shattered glass remained. It seemed to have collapsed from within, presumably once Hannibal left the YinYang world. Its only purpose had been to contain him, after all.

Eventually, they wandered all the way up to the endless halls of bottle Chi. The shelves closed in around them, but they didn't dare touch. The Chi Creature, after all, came crawling down the side of a tall shelf to glare at them.

"It better leave us alone," Kimiko muttered, watching the snarling, freakish thing out the corner of her eye. It made strange hissing and gargling noises at them the whole time.

"Y'know, I _was_ going to suggest that we just grab Seek's Chi and give it to Good Seek to return her to normal," Raimundo admitted, "but I don't think that's a good idea."

"Not at all," Clay agreed.

"Especially," Omi half growled, "because we would lose Good Seek!"

Rai just rolled his eyes, but Omi didn't see it.

Eventually, they traveled up to get away from the Chi halls, and the Chi Creature. This, though, left them with no idea of where to search next.

"The YinYang world may be a wild and unpredictable place," Clay began, scratching under his hat, "but it seems to be mostly barren flatland. Or, somethin' like it."

"Might want to save that thought," Kimiko exclaimed, pointing towards a moving light in the distance.

They never found out what it was, but it came on fast. The thing, some kind of dragon-like creature, was writing and spinning through the air like a scrap of material in the wind. It was glowing with an intense light, making it seem larger than it actually was. It shot by like a bullet, disappearing into the distance just as fast as it came. They all cried out and tried to jump out of the way, but it was like a train off its track.

Whatever it was, it knocked Raimundo down and left him clutching his jaw in pain.

"Ah! What the hell was that? I think it knocked my tooth out!"

At his words, a heavy mahogany desk dropped down just a few feet behind him, literally out of nowhere. They all stared at it for a moment, very confused. Then, after a several second pause, a stack of papers appeared on top of it. Then, a little quicker this time, a green-shaded reading lamp appeared, followed quickly by a pen set, more papers, a paper weight, a computer, some books, and a phone. Without even waiting, a carpet seemed to grow out from below the desk, and walls sprouted up all around, welding together on top to form the ceiling. There was a tall potted plant in one corner, a dartboard on a wall, and a display of framed certificates on the opposite wall. Finally, four chairs appeared in a puff of smoke, inviting them to sit.

For all they could see, the monks might as well have been in an office anywhere in the world, but certainly _not_ one in the YinYang world.

Then, lastly, came the black, cushioned office chair behind the desk, also in a puff of YinYang smoke. Sitting casually in the chair, already bent over paperwork, decked out in her usual pinstripe three-piece, was Seek Patience.

"You called?" she asked calmly without looking up. The room was very dark, as the only light came from her lamp and computer screen. She had a cigar clenched in her teeth, but she hadn't lit it yet.

There was no response for a moment as the monks tried to take in the complete change in scenery. After a few seconds, though, Clay pulled his wits together.

"Uh, yeah, Miss Patience," he said, approaching her desk, "we got ourselves in a bit of a pickle. Actually, it's us, and the whole world."

"Jack Spicer's taken over the world," Omi cried out, jumping up on the desk and standing next to the lamp. At least this way he was about the same height as the others.

Patience leaned back in her chair, looking up at them for the first time. She took the cigar out of her mouth and held it to the side, her elbow on the armrest.

"Jack took over the world?" she repeated slowly. "I take it he figured out how to build SMART bots?"

"And then some!" Kimiko exclaimed. "Not only that, but he used the Master Pen to make a single Shen Gong Wu with the power of all the others."

"Yeah, and then he, like, multiplied himself with the Ring of Nine Dragons and the Reversing Mirror. So did Meg Kake. Now there are four super Jacks, and nine cooperative Megs. It's freaky."

Patience considered this for a moment, shifting in her chair.

"What about Chase Young?" she asked intently.

"Out a' the game," Clay answered. "Jack locked him in the Sphere of Yun. I think he might have all the other villains, too."

Something about this news tickled Patience, and she had to curl forward a little in laughter.

"Oh, kudos to Jack!" she laughed. "So, what? You need me to stop those robots?"

They all nodded, more or less. Raimundo kind of gave an admitting shrug, and Kimiko rolled her eyes.

Seek looked at her cigar and adjusted the chain linking to her pocket watch.

"Well, boys and girls, I'm afraid you're only covering half the game plan."

"What do you mean?" Omi asked.

Seek put her feet up on the desk- she was wearing _really _nice shoes- and inspected her cigar for the moment.

"Let me lay the whole situation out for you as clearly as I possibly can. I hate Jack, Jack is afraid of me. Chase hates Jack, but now Jack is cocky and thinks Chase can't touch him. I hate Chase, but I am now unfortunately bound to him, thanks to Jack. So, the easiest thing for me to do would be to melt all Jack's robots, free Chase, gang up on Jack to take away the Omni-Wu and Master Pen, and then double cross Chase. But, I can't do that while I'm trapped in the YinYang world. And, what's more, my clock is ticking. I don't have much time left before that God forsaken potion wears off again and I turn back into a raging dragon. So," she finished, "_what_ are the little monks to do?"

The monks looked to one another slowly. It was true that they couldn't trust this Evil Seek, but she _would_ stop Jack. But, once she stopped Jack, who would take his place?

"Now, surely you can come up with something," she grinned. She looked back to her cigar, and, just for the fun of it, glanced to Kimiko. "Hey, Fire girl. Gotta light?"

Kimiko gave an angry sigh and snapped her fingers. There was a delay, but after just a second the end of Seek's cigar lit up and began burning at a low, even smolder.

Just then, Omi spoke up and retold Seek what Good Seek had spoken of not too long ago.

"Seek Patience," he said sternly. "You were once a Xiaolin Monk, and you are still the Dragon of Metal, whether you like it or not."

Seek rolled her eyes and glared to the side.

"You can stop all of Jack's robots," he went on, "but the only way to defeat his limitless Shen Gong Wu is for all six Dragons to form together in the completed Dragon Deity formation. As we are, we complete only the Dragons breath, blood, talons, and wings. We need its body and soul to be all-powerful. That is the key to finally stopping Jack Spicer!"

Seek tapped the ashes off the end of her cigar, moving in a slow way that suggested deep thought.

"Close, but no cigar," she said finally. She got to her feet and put one hand behind her back. "The hyperactive empress of raves happens to be the life of the party _and_ the Dragon of Light, and she has _zero_ training. She could never pull off a Dragon move. Ever. Not as she is now. Plus, even if she could, why would she fight Jack…"

Seek stopped suddenly and stared straight ahead. The others watched her profile for a moment, thinking she had just come upon an incredible idea.

Suddenly, Seek's cigar dropped to the floor and a violent shudder ran through her whole body. She almost dropped to one knee, grabbing onto the edge of her desk. She appeared to be in pain for a few moments, but she gradually recovered and dropped back into her chair.

"Holy shit…" she muttered, resting her shaking forearms on her thighs. "No wonder Chase is always pissed. That's so painful."

"Did you just _almost_ turn into a dragon?" Kimiko asked, staring wide-eyed.

"No, just those dang menstrual cramps again. Here's yer sign."

Seek recovered fully and stood, leaning on her desk with both hands.

"All right, you little punks," she said with what they could tell was just dark sarcasm, the kind your math teacher uses, "I refuse to turn back into a dragon. But, I also refuse to either become dependent on Chase _or_ fight him again. So, if you help me get the Master Pen back, I'll help you defeat Jack…"

"Oh, no," Raimundo interrupted, stepping forward. "I know how you evil types work. A few choice words will get you around legitimate agreements! There'll be no backstabbing here! You will destroy all of Jack's SMARTs. Then, you and Nutmeg Kake will fight _alongside_ us to defeat his Shen Gong Wu. Only _after_ peace and order has been restored to earth will you get your hands on the Master Pen. And, even after that, you have to swear that you won't try to take over the world."

"Listen, circus freak," Seek said slowly, leaning in towards him, "I could change back into a dragon and whip all your weakling asses to hell and back again, take the YinYang yoyo, and do whatever the hell I want. But, I'm not going to. I have my agenda, you have yours, and mine has nothing to do with world conquest. Got it?"

Raimundo and Seek glared at each other with such intensity that Omi had to shove Rai to break them apart.

"No! We have no time to negotiate and make rules to worry about breaking them!" Omi ordered. "We all want to stop Jack Spicer- that is our common goal!" As Omi jumped down from the desk, the office evaporated in a puff of YinYang smoke. "Plus," he said as he took out the YinYang yoyo, "I think I know how Meg Kake can learn her Dragon's Soul powers right away, and also how we can get her to fight alongside us!"


	26. The Final Assault Begins

Chapter 26. The Final Assault Begins

The Xiaolin Monks leapt from the YinYang world portal one after another, with Evil Seek Patience bringing up the rear, back into Chase's deserted palace.

"Are we all here?" Raimundo asked, taking a quick check. "Good. Now, let's go find Jack so we can find Chase so we can find Dojo!"

"This is going to take forever," Kimiko muttered as Seek walked by her.

"But first, a pit stop," Seek said, quickly jogging down a hall.

"Hey! Where're you goin'?" Clay demanded as he and the monks chased after her.

They followed Seek all the way to the massive vault door that guarded Chase's horde of Lao Mien Lonsoup.

"Good luck," Raimundo rolled his eyes. "You need, like, ten combos and Chase's handprint to get in there."

Seek gave him a nasty look over her shoulder and held her right hand against the door. There was a strange sound, like someone sanding a board, and the monks watched with curiosity as Seek tensed and clenched her fists. The metal under her hand began to morph and melt, slowly spiraling counter-clockwise. She gradually bore a hole in the door, the extra metal expanding out to the sides and rejoining with the rest of the door. In just a few moments, it was large enough to fit Omi inside. But, Seek suddenly stopped.

"That bastard!" she exclaimed. "There's a layer of rock in here!"

Just then, her concentration thrown off by the interruption, the potion's effect finally began to get the better of her. She dropped her hand and doubled up. In a flash, her cry of pain turned into an enraged growl as she was replaced by the sinuous maroon dragon.

"Holy shit!" Raimundo screamed out as he and the other monks jumped back. "I thought she was just leading us on this whole time so she could get to the potion and steal Chase's powers!"

"But Good Seek _told_ us that this happened," Omi retorted.

"Yeah, as though we should trust a Seek, good _or_ evil!"

The Seek dragon went up on her haunches and, gnashing her teeth and muttering profanities, dug both sets of claws into the door. She drew up all the metal she had previously dug out and yanked it back. The metal stretched like some kind of shiny goo, thick strands of it still sticking to the door. Then, when Seek had pulled back as far as she could, the metal around her claws solidified in a flash, forming a jagged spike. The strands of metal drawn from the door shattered like icicles as Seek slammed the spike of metal back into the hole she'd begun, smashing right through the layer of rock. The whole action took about five seconds.

Beyond the rock there were only a few more inches of metal for Seek to carve out. The tunnel she carved in the door was just the right size for her to slither through, so she disappeared inside to snag a can of soup.

The monks stared for a few seconds, taken off guard by the fit of rage.

"Those SMART bots don't stand a chance," Kimiko said with a half grin.

They heard the ripping sound as Seek yanked the lid off a can from within the vault.

"How can he drink this shit?" they heard her snap, apparently returned to her human self. There was an unexplained silence, during which Raimundo began running through all the possibilities for betrayal at hand.

"Hey, guys," he whispered. "We gotta watch our backs here, ya know? I bet…"

Before he could go on, Seek returned through the portal feet first. She was back to normal, pinstripes and all, and had brought the empty soup can with her. It clanked to the ground and rolled by the monks as Seek righted herself and, with a little bit of concentration, returned the door to its original state, hiding the blocks of broken rock within the door.

"I doubt he'll ever even notice," she said smugly, admiring her perfect patch job. "He must've had the entire Northern Cho-Cho clan bottle up in there," she laughed, adjusting her collar as she walked by the monks.

"WHAT?" Kimiko exclaimed, just about catching on fire. "Are you serious? What did he do? Label the cans?"

Seek shrugged.

"Search me. But, it looked to me like he might keep track of which families of dragons make the best Lao Mien Lon**." **

"That's sick," Raimundo snapped, picking up the loose can.

"Hey- not only does Lao Mien Lonturn you into a dragon and turn you Heylin, but I'm beginning to think it might be some sort of Evil energy drink. And…a mouthwash…" Seek added as she ran her tongue over her teeth thoughtfully. "Yeah, I think so. I'm definitely getting a rush from chugging that whole can…"

Raimundo gave the empty can a sniff and handed it to Clay.

"Smells pretty rank to be a mouthwash," Rai said flatly.

"I'll bet a fella could make a mountain a' money if he found away t'keep all the energy in the soup but take out the evil and nasty transformation," Clay thought out loud, pushing the jagged top back inside the can.

"He did," Kimiko said frankly. "It's called Coca-Cola Blak."

"Hey- where's Omi?" Raimundo suddenly noticed. Seek was halfway down the hall, too pumped up to stand around and contemplate that soup any longer.

"Found her!" they heard Omi call out from a nearby room.

Good Seek nearly collided with Evil Seek in the doorway.

"Hi there!" Good Seek said happily. Evil Seek gave a short scream of disgust and revulsion, pushing Good Seek backwards through the door.

"Hey! How dare you push Good Seek!" Omi snapped, jumping between the two.

"I've got every right to push myself around, you little pop corn kernel. But, as much as I'd love to stick around and tell Good Seek horrid stores about the bloody deaths of small, fluffy animals," she went on as the other three monks came through the doorway, "I have a previous appointment to knock all Jack's teeth out! Look alive, kiddies! We need to track down Jack!"

They all ran after Seek as she left for the main part of the palace where the ceiling opened up to the sky.

"According to the BBC," Kimiko informed them, reading off her PDA, "the Spicer Mother SMART is practically in orbit. We'll have to fly up quite a few miles to get to him."

"Okay, but _where_ is he?" Raimundo asked.

"Directly above…" Kimiko stopped and looked away from the screen as a shadow fell across them all. She looked straight up and stared at the sky. "Us," she said.

Everyone craned their necks and saw the Mother SMART, tens of thousands of feet above but still big enough to block out the sun a bit.

"Boy howdy!" Clay exclaimed. "That thing gets bigger every time we see it!"

"Yeah," Rai said sarcastically. "C'mon guys, let's go do this!"

The four summoned their Dragon abilities and changed into the impressive dragons of Water, Wind, Fire, and Earth, and Seek turned into the rather evil looking Dragon of Metal.

"Wait just one second, you!" Good Seek shouted. "I'm coming with you!" Good Seek, too, changed into the Dragon of Metal, though she was slightly smaller and much less lethally adorned than Evil Seek.

"You're _not_ coming," Seek snapped back. "You'll just get in the way!"

"I _am_ coming and there's nothing you can do about it! I'm going to make sure that you keep your word and don't double cross these nice young people."

Seek gave such an intensely aggravated and sickened sigh that the others wondered if she hurt her voice box in doing so.

"Ugh! Fine, whatever! Can we just _go_?"

So, finally, the uneasy alliance took to the skies and left the palace. As they raced straight through the air, the monks took a final count of their Shen Gong Wu.

"YinYang yoyo, Hero Glass, and Honest Argot," Clay said ruefully.

"We can use the Honest Argot to find Dojo," Omi said, "and the Hero Glass on Meg."

"Oh yeah," Kimiko remembered. "You still have to tell us your plan for Meg."

"If we can do to Meg what Chase did to Seek with the YinYang yoyo, we can get a Meg that will fight on our side. Then, we can use the Hero Glass on Meg and she will gain all her Light powers!"

"I will be damn impressed if that works," Evil Seek told them bluntly.

"You don't think they can do it?" Good Seek asked, trying to fly along side her other self.

"No. I don't think they can."

Just then, the SMART bots guarding the Mother SMART spread the alert of the approaching threat.

"Megas and regulars comin' in!" Clay shouted, clenching up the massive rock talons of his Dragon form.

"Something just occurred to me," Kimiko said sharply, flaring up to prepare for the fight. "Why does it have to be just us? We've got the Hero Glass, so why don't we just find a bunch of people who want to fight Jack and give them all their potential powers?"

"You would be surprised at who such quick, easy power would corrupt," Omi warned her, glancing at Raimundo quickly.

"'Sides," Clay added, "no sense in draggin' anyone else into this mess. No knowin' who would get hurt!"

Meanwhile, Evil Seek listed off all the reasons why Good Seek should help her destroy the SMART bots.

"Just think of it as _defending_, not as attacking!" Evil Seek shouted as she melted a regular SMART like a candy bar in the sun. This, finally, seemed to be the key to convincing Good Seek.

"Well, I guess you're right," she sighed, putting out her hands.

"Dragon's Body!" they called out in unison.

The two Seeks mirrored each other exactly, zipping through the air and bursting every SMART that came near them like a blister.

The monks sat back and watched as the Seek annihilated upwards near a million tons of metal, detonated munitions that got in their way, and often left nothing but the carpeting from cockpit floors.

"It's kinda nice to have someone else to all the heavy liftin' for a change," Clay said with a grin.

* * *

Not too far above, standing at the control deck with his hands behind his back, Jack Spicer, ruler of Earth, was watching the battle with interest. He glowered at the monks, wondering why they wouldn't just learn their lesson and go home. He scratched his stubble on his chin, wondering what he would do about Seek. For inspiration, he decided to take a walk down his Hall of Evil Trophies he had been collecting lately.

Jack had returned himself to just one, so he was his regular self again, but he had learned a few things from his temporary improvement. Now, if only his sidekick would do the same.

"Meg! Shut up! I can't hear myself think!" he hollered over at the now-seven Megs running around the ship. "Don't make me turn you back into one person!"

"Aw, you're no fun any more, Jack!" a Meg whined.

"Yeah! I thought this whole world domination thing would just be a big party!"

"Well, you thought wrong!" Jack shouted. "Now, make yourself useful and keep an eye on the battle down there."

The Megs stuck their tongues out behind Jack's back and bounced off to the control deck.

Jack passed through the retracing door that let him into the long, dimly lit hallway. Technically, it was the ship's prison, but it was an all-star cast of inmates.

He walked by the heavy metal doors with narrow windows of bulletproof glass. They were _all_ locked up in this hallway, everyone from Wuya to the cop that pulled him over once for doing 68 in a 65 zone. Katnappe, Tubbimura, Panda Bubba, Panda Bubba Body Guards, Le Mime, Vlad, the Heylin seed, Cyclops, the Chameleon-bot: all locked away! He even had four empty cells awaiting the Xiaolin monks. The real pride of his collection, though, was behind the heaviest door on which Jack had the patience to put the toughest locks he could find. There was even an electrical current running through the door to keep its prisoner at bay.

"How're ya doin' in there, C.Y?" Jack laughed after pressing the little intercom button. However, there was no response, but he could see the pacing outline of Reptilian Chase through the narrow window. "Jack bots takin' good care of ya? I sure hope not! Listen, I got a proposition to get you out of here. A good friend of yours is on her way here and it looks like she's ready to melt my entire SMART army. I'll let you out if you swear your loyalty to me and get rid of Seek.

This time Jack got a response, but it was only Chase laughing uproariously at the suggestion.

"You're eternally a fool, Spicer!" Chase growled. "If Seek is headed this way, then it's not to destroy the SMARTs."

"Uh, news flash, soup breath! She's destroying them right now!"

"That's just because they're attacking. If you call them off, she won't exactly go hunting them. She's looking for me."

A few seconds later, Jack burst back onto the control deck.

"Megs! Call off all the SMARTs! We're setting a trap!"

"A trap? What kind of trap?"

"A _sinister_ one," Jack shouted at her, tiring of her silly questions. "Actually, you know what?" Jack grabbed the Wu from his pocket. "Ring of the Nine Dragons!"

The seven Megs flickered and quickly rejoined into one body.

"Aaaww!" Meg whined. "What was that for? We were having so much fun!"

"Yeah, well, play time's over. I don't want a stray Meg to give my plan away when they get here."

Meg glowered at him and slid her jaw to the side.

"And, what is this plan?" she asked, already coming up with ways to ruin it.

"I think Seek teamed up with the monks so she could get at Chase. If we let her find Chase, then we can trap all of them down in the prison."

"But, Seek will just bust out of the dungeon," Meg reminded him.

"We trap the _monks_ in the dungeon, Meg."

"And Miss Seek?"

Jack gave her a dark, truly sinister grin. This wasn't just one of his boyish bully evil grins- this was a deep snarl of true malevolence.

"This time, we _let_ Chase kill her!"


	27. So Long, Suckers!

Chapter 27. So Long, Suckers!

"In your _face_, Jack SMARTs!" Evil Seek shouted triumphantly as the last bot dripped away and the others went into retreat.

"Why are they leaving?" Kimiko asked, flying up alongside Good Seek.

"Jack probably doesn't want t' waste any more SMARTs," Clay assumed.

"C'mon guys," Rai shouted. "Let's go find Jack and put an end to all this!"

The group flew the final few hundred feet to the Mother SMART, vanishing into the almost complete darkness of its shadow. The two Seeks could have bore a hole into the body of the ship, but there was no telling how thick the armor was and whether or not they would electrocute themselves in the process.

"Hey, there's a docking bay over here," Kimiko called out, pointing to a tall set of round, retracting doors. "It looks like it's for a Mini."

"Perfect," Good Seek said as she and her evil side hovered before the door and forced it open. They all had to fight to get inside, as the sudden change in pressure caused a temporary vacuum.

"Jeeze Louise!" Clay exclaimed when Seek slammed the doors shut as soon as they were all inside.

"That really takes the wind out of ya," Rai gasped, leaning on the wall.

"How ironic," Kimiko said with a smirk.

Omi ran past them, following the two Seeks who were already leaving the tube-like tunnel of the port.

"Focus!" he snapped as he ran by.

Through the bay, they found themselves in a massive hanger, equipped to hold several regular SMARTs. It reminded Raimundo of the hanger in _A New Hope_, minus the giant docking bay window and storm troopers.

"All right," Evil Seek got their attention. "If you want to fight Jack, we need to get Meg on our side. But first, we need to find Meg. We should all split up because this ship is roughly the size of New York City."

"That is _awfully_ big," Omi commented, remembering his own fiasco in the city. "Wait, I want to go with Good Seek!" he protested.

"Ugh, fine. The _rest_ of you split up…"

"Oh, no you don't!" Raimundo cut in. "No way we're letting you run off on your own, Miss Backstabber! I'm going with you to keep an eye on ya!"

Seek raised her forefinger and opened her mouth, but she was cut off again.

"Yeah, no kidding, Rai. And, I'm not running through this stupid ship by _myself_! Who knows what kind of weird stuff we'll find in here?"

"It will take forever if we do not split up, though," Omi reminded her.

"Yeah, so unlatch from Good Seek!" Evil Seek snapped.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up!" Clay stopped them all, holding up his hands. "Here's what I think: No one should go into the ship by themselves because of all the SMARTs! Jack only called off those last 'uns in the first place because of the Seeks. So, I think we should split up into two groups. Omi and Kimiko are the smallest, so they can sneak around with Good Seek. Raimundo and I will go with Evil Seek to keep an eye on her."

"Sounds like a good plan to me!" Kimiko agreed.

Raimundo was about to agree, too, when he noticed Evil Seek was missing.

"Hey! Get back here, you sneaky bitch!" he screamed, running after her.

"Well, are we gonna stand around all day patting each other on the back or are we gonna _do_ something?" she yelled back over her shoulder, running towards an open hallway.

Clay ran after Rai, and Omi, Kimiko, and Good Seek took an opposite route. Raimundo had the YinYang yoyo, Omi had the Hero Glass, and Kimiko had the Honest Argot.

Raimundo and Clay followed Seek's pinstriped form down a number of industrial, pipe-like hallways, all lit with long lights and branching off without instruction periodically.

"Where the hell are we going?" Rai demanded.

"Yeah, how do ya know where ye'r goin'?" asked Clay.

"I'm looking for Chase," Seek explained.

"_Chase_? What about finding Meg?"

"Let them handle Meg! They have the Hero Glass, anyway. Besides, I think Kimiko speaks 'Meg'."

"So, why don't we look for Jack?"

"Because," Seek said patiently, coming to a three-way fork in the hallway, "you want to find out about Lou Mien Dojo, and I want to give Chase a piece of my _extremely_ pissed off mind." She suddenly looked to the side and sprinted down the hall to her left.

"Uh-uh," Clay said, grabbing his hat as he ran. "And, how do you know where Chase _is_?"

"Use the force, young grasshopper," Seek said sarcastically, mashing movie quotes. "That crazy soup lights up your senses, and I can just about smell that _rat bastard_ all the way out here. And, I think we're getting close."

Sure enough, the hall finally came to an end at a tall steel ladder bolted to the wall. Seek never stopped running but jumped right on to the ladder and shot up eagerly.

"Going up," Rai muttered, looking into the darkness of the ladder shaft.

It was a good six-flight climb, and at the top Seek had to pop off a hatchway to escape. The ladder brought them to the opposite end of the Detainment "Trophy" Hall, dim with enclosed lights and dead silent.

"There must be a thousand cells in this place!" Rai complained, seeing the vast hall.

"But most of 'em are just regular doors," Clay noticed. "I think we're looking for somthin' a little tougher than these."

Rai and Clay followed after Seek, well aware that she could open every single one of these doors at once and unleash a flood of ticked off villains.

"Hey, check this out, dude," Rai whispered, pointing to a door on his left. "These ones have our names on them! Like, literally!"

Clay let out a low whistle, a bit humbled by the prospect. It was sort of like seeing a tombstone with your name already printed on it.

They turned when they heard Seek scoff.

"Notice how _I_ don't seem to have one?" she asked.

"Well, duh," Rai rolled his eyes. "Even Jack wouldn't try to lock you up in a _metal_ cell."

"No, but there are a myriad of other materials he could have used," she pointed out. "Makes you wondered what he had in mind instead," she side slyly.

"Ah, here we are!" Seek exclaimed, coming to the heavy-duty door that withheld Reptilian Chase. "Home stinking home!" Seek leaned against the wall and pushed the intercom button. "Good morning, Shang Tsung," she said with an evil grin. "Feeling soul-hungry today?"

"Hey, soup suds!" Raimundo snapped, pressing the intercom button. "We want to know what you did with Dojo!"

"Burn in Hell," the voice of Reptilian Chase snapped back fiercely.

"Don't give me that, you XXL iguana! I wanna know where Dojo is!"

"Let me out, and I might tell you," Chase snickered.

"Like we're gonna let you out of here!" Rai said contemptibly. "You can either tell us now, or Seek here'll bust down this door and we'll whip you through the YinYang world and make _Good_ Chase tell us!"

There was a pause before the reply.

"I thought I smelled treachery," Chase growled. "So, Seek escaped the YinYang world," he said, feigning that this was news to him.

"Damn straight, Sherlock!" Seek snapped. "And if it weren't for Clayton Moore and Nacho Libre here, I'd open this door right now and smack you around a while!"

"Clayton Moore and Nacho Libre?" Raimundo repeated slowly.

"Listen," Chase said sharply, "we all want the same thing: to stop Jack! Let me out of here and we can all put Jack down!"

"And Dojo!" Clay reminded him.

"Yes, yes! I'll tell you where to find him!"

Seek cracked her knuckles and put her hands up, switching off the intercom.

"All right- time to enact a little revenge!"

"One second there, Patience," Raimundo stalled her. "I gotta talk to Clay about something first."

Seek rolled her eyes and waited with arms crossed.

"Hey, do you think we're building up too many untrustworthy allies here?" Rai whispered to Clay to the side.

"Yeah, I know what ya mean pardner," Clay agreed. "But, what choice to we have?"

Raimundo held up the YinYang yoyo.

"I think it's time we did a little double-crossing of our own! As soon as Seek opens that door, we YinYang-yoyo Chase in and out of the other dimension so fast his head'll spin! A Good Chase would definitely keep his word."

"I don't know, Rai," Clay said. "Won't that just put a second, extra-evil Chase in the YinYang world plotting vengeance on us? I don't think we should mix things up too much here."

Raimundo sighed, extremely frustrated with the situation.

"Know what? I'm the Leader here, so I'm going to do what I think is right!" He turned around and walked back up to Seek. "Open that door!" he shouted, holding up the YinYang yoyo.

"Can do," Seek said with an evil smirk.

But, instead of opening Chase's door, she opened the door to Raimundo's empty cell.

"So long, Xiaolin suckers!"

The floors melted under the monks' feet, wrapping bars around their feet. Raimundo cried out in pain as an iron cord dropped down from the ceiling and wrapped around his hand, shaking the YinYang yoyo free.

"Earth!" Clay retaliated, shaking the floor violently with an intense Dragon's Talons attack. But, the earth was many miles below so the attack was weak, and Seek simply pushed her hands to the side, sliding the both of them into their respective cells. She slammed the doors and locked them, adding an extra few inches of armor around the inside of the cells to contain the powerful Dragons.

"You bottom-feedin', scum-suckin', double-crossin' whore!" Clay absolutely lost it! "This is a cheap move even for evil! Ain't you got no standards?"

Seek scoffed and pocketed the Wu.

"Ain't you got no grammar? Hey, you've only got yourselves to blame. Leave the backstabbing to the evil, Raimundo! You never should have plotted against Chase," she reprimanded.

"Why the hell not? You were planning to do the same thing!" Rai exclaimed.

"Actually, I wasn't," Seek said with a grin. They heard the familiar groan of melting metal as Seek opened the doors to Chase's cell. Clay and Rai stood in darkness and could only wonder about the sounds that came into their cell from the hall.

Immediately Reptilian Chase jumped at Seek and slammed her to the floor, nearly plunging his talons straight through her shoulders. But, he drew back a bit when he saw that Seek was just being submissive.

"Finger off the trigger there, C.Y!" Seek exclaimed, putting her hands behind her head.

"What are you up to?" he snarled, expecting her to pull a fast one any second.

"As I was just telling the new inmates," Seek explained, carefully unhooking one of his lethal claws from her jacket, "they came here to save Dojo, and I came here to save you."

"Likely!" Chase growled, bearing his teeth. "Why shouldn't I just kill you now?"

"Because…" Seek paused and caught her breath. "Ugh, get _off_ me first!"

Chase slid to the side and rose up on his hind legs, letting Seek jump to her feet.

"All right, here's how I see it," Seek went on. "I still don't like you, but I think I got that grudge out of my system in the last fight. And, as things are now, I don't see why we should be enemies. I'm the one who can fight off the SMARTs, and you're the one with the Lou Mien Red Bull recipe, so…"

Chase held his claw up with a disgusted sigh.

"Don't even finish. Let's just get the hell out of here!"

Chase went to walk by, but Seek held up her hand. She reached into her breast pocket and withdrew a flat, silver flask.

"Swiped a little extra just in case it came to this," he explained, holding the drink out to Chase. He eyed it skeptically, but, after a quick sniff, decided she hadn't poisoned it. In one long swig, Chase emptied the flask and tossed it to the ground. In a flash, he was restored to his human self and back in business.

Before leaving to find Jack, Chase tapped on the narrow window in Raimundo's cell door.

"You'll find Dojo on the fourth and fifth shelves, far to the left!"

Chase left the two depressed, bewailing monks with a cruel but smooth evil laugh as he and Seek ran from the prison hall.


	28. Jack's First Robot

Chapter 28. Jack's First Robot

When Raimundo and Clay ran down one hall with Evil Seek, Omi and Kimiko ran down another with Good Seek.

"We could look forever!" Omi exclaimed, peeking behind a door. The three had been running around the ship for quite sometime, and so far they hadn't run into anyone.

"All the Jack Bots are probably down on earth," said Kimiko. "Maybe there's a way to get into the ship's computer and search for Meg?" she went on, taking out her Omni PDA as they walked along.

Good Seek tapped her fingertips together and rolled up on her toes.

"Um, I'm not entirely sure about that," she said softly.

"Why not?" Omi asked.

"If Kimiko taps into the computer system, Jack is bound to notice. In fact, it would probably set off some kind of alarm."

Kimiko frowned and scratched her chin.

"Hmm. I think you're right."

Just then, they saw a shadow move down a perpendicular hallway.

"It's either Jack or Meg," Kimiko warned as she and Omi went into fighting stances. Good Seek held out her hand thoughtfully.

"It's metal," she said, herself surprised.

Around the corner came quite possibly the oldest JackBot they had ever seen. It was about Kimiko's height, and it moved about by rolling around on an office-chair base. Its movement was a little eccentric, as though it either had difficulty controlling itself or its guidance system was just crap. The design was basically the same as the other JackBots, but it was smaller, a little rusted, held together with duct tape in a few places, and clearly toted none of its newer model's weapons.

"Ah! Oh no! Not you!" it exclaimed in the usual monotone JackBot voice when it saw them. "Please don't hurt me!" The bot actually held its arms up and cowered.

Omi and Kimiko weren't sure what to do.

"This is weird," Kim muttered. "What on earth kind of JackBot is that?"

The bot, sensing no immediate danger, lowered its arms and rolled a little closer. It seemed to be squinting, as though it had poor vision.

"I'm JackBot AA001. But, everyone just calls me Chester. I was Master Jack's very first JackBot."

"Jack's very first JackBot?" Omi repeated. "How are you still intact?"

"How are you not made out of Legos?" Kim asked with a grin.

"Because the one value I have is sentimental value," the bot said, its shoulders slouching. "And, apparently, I don't even have much of that."

The monks were just plain confused.

"The other JackBots make fun of me," Chester went on. "And I never have anyone to talk to. Jack used to hang out with me and play video games with me, but now all he wants to do is take over the world. Actually, he's already done that, hasn't he?" For a robot, Chester actually looked and sounded depressed. "For a while, all he did was hang out with that crazy Meg Kake girl, but now he ignores her, too. I am so depressed."

"Well," Omi began, taking a step forward as he formulated a plan, "the problem is clearly Jack's obsession with the rest of the world. If he were not so busy with the world, he would have more time to dangle out with you."

"Hang, Omi. Hang out," Kim whispered quickly.

Chester considered the concept for a moment.

"But, world domination means everything to Jack. He would hate me if…"

"You need not take part, my friend," Omi assured him. "Let Jack put the blame on us! All we need to do is find Meg Kake. Soon, Jack will be back in his basement playing video games again!"

Chester perked up considerably.

"Sounds good to me!" he said, giving the thumbs up. "Follow me."

Chester rolled on his four little wheels down the hall, which was fortunately all smooth and polished. He led them down a few halls and into an elevator.

"Meg lives on the top, top floor," Chester explained as the others crowded in. "Jack likes her up there, too: out of the way."

As the elevator zipped up, Kimiko checked her wild hair in the mirror walls and Good Seek inspected the damage to Chester's body.

"Maybe this will help," Good Seek suggested, holding her hands over the robot. With her Metal powers, she mended all his cracks, renewed his spare parts, cleaned up the rust, and tightened some bolts.

"Oh, wow," Chester exclaimed, looking down at himself. "I feel like a whole new bot! Wait until Jack sees this!"

The elevator door slid open then and the four of them stepped into Meg Kake's Fun Zone.

"My Fun Zone isn't very fun today!" they heard her scream from the far end of the room. Basically, picture a gigantic, foam-padded and rope-laced playscape, skirted by DDR games, vending machines, big TVs, and buckets and buckets of bouncy balls. Techno music was playing somewhere, and the tiles of the floor clearly lit up, but it wasn't exactly a dance party.

"What's the point in having all this wild stuff without at least one other person to play with?" she went on, clearly in the middle of a rant. "Stupid Jack! He doesn't need to oversee the world anymore: his robots and minions can do that for him! He just stuck me up here to get rid of me! Stupid butt head! Why won't he play with me?" she finished with a stressed scream.

Chester, the monks, and Good Seek couldn't see Meg, but she seemed to be somewhere up high. Then, she noticed them.

"The elevator works from the other end?" she exclaimed. Meg dropped down from nowhere and landed right in front of the group. "What are you freaks doing here?" she demanded.

"We're here to take the world back from Jack," Kimiko said flatly.

Meg rolled her eyes.

"Oh, good," she said sarcastically. "Then Jack will really be pissed off. Well, good luck. You don't stand a chance against Jack now. Even if you can get by the SMART bots, he's still got all the Shen Gong Wu."

"Not quite," Omi said with a grin. He and Kimiko held up the Honest Argot and the Hero Glass.

"What the heck are those?" Meg asked, putting her weight on one hip.

"Tell me, Meg," Kimiko said with a grin. "If you could put an end to Jack's world domination business, would you?"

Just as Meg was about to reply, Kimiko cut in.

"Honest Argot!"

"Jack's been really mean to me lately and all he cares about it taking over and controlling the world. He's not a very good friend, at least not any more. I know he's twenty something now and I'm only thirteen, but that doesn't mean he can't still party with me! I think that if he wasn't running the world, he'd have more time to chill…with me."

Meg stopped and stared. She couldn't believe it. She just poured out everything she had been thinking all along and admitted that she wanted Jack to quit with the world.

She crossed her arms and pouted.

"Well," she said slowly. "It doesn't matter. There's no way to beat Jack."

"Actually," Omi said with a grin. He explained how the Dragon Deity formation was the key to defeating all the Shen Gong Wu.

"Except I don't know how to do the Dragon Deity formation," Meg snapped back. "I don't even know how I learned to move in bullet time, so there's no way I could learn the rest of it."

_"We _have a way," Kimiko said. "But, you have to promise that you'll help us stop Jack. No double crossing or evil-doing."

"Yeah right," Meg scoffed. She walked away and started up a DDR game. Chester looked on with curiosity, fascinated by the dance platform. "Besides," she said as she bounced away on the lights, "I can't turn on Jack! Even if he does deserve it."

"I don't know Meg," Kimiko said slyly, inspecting her nails. "You always complain about how much older than you Jack is. I think you'll be interested in this. Hey, Chester? Hero Glass!"

Kimiko held out the Hero Glass and used it on the old JackBot. In a swirl of light and little sparkly things, Chester was transformed. In his place stood the finest, top of the line, brand new, and fully equipped JackBot. He was much bigger, armed with razor sharp claws, a wide selection of weapons and tracking devices, and thick, sleek armor. And, now he moved around via jet pack.

"Oh, wow," Chester exclaimed, looking down at himself again. "This is just my day, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but it only lasts twenty-four hours," Kimiko admitted, explaining the other details of the Wu.

Meg stared, mouth ajar and lost for words.

"I gotta get me some a' that," she mumbled.

"Oh, but you do not want to rebel against Jack, remember?" Omi said, lowering his eyes wisely for a moment.

"I want Jack to see what I'm made of! He'll be so sorry he locked me up here! He's gonna pee his evil pants when he sees Nutmeg Kake, Empress of Raves And _Revenge _in her prime!"


	29. The Second To Last Chapter

Chapter 29. The Second To Last Chapter!

After making a quick call to Raimundo on her cell phone, Kimiko led the group all the way back to Jack Spicer's Trophy Hall/Dungeon. They avoided Seek and Chase in the hall by barely a minute, but it took them a little extra time to locate Clay and Rai's cells.

"How could this happen?" Omi asked, leaping up to the cell window and hanging on to peer in for a moment.

"Try Seek turned on us and joined up with Chase!" Raimundo hollered.

Good Seek rolled her eyes and held her hands up to the two cell doors.

"She is so _bad_! Give her an inch and she yanks out your front teeth!"

The doors melted away and the captured monks were set free.

"Hey, who's this?" Clay asked almost immediately.

"We don't have time to explain anything!" Kimiko said quickly. "We have to find Chase and…"

"No, we have to find Jack!" Raimundo snapped. "We already found out about Dojo, Kim, and he's not coming back. So, I say we focus all our attention on Spicer and put an end to his reign as Ruler of Earth!"

"Dojo…!" Kimiko exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hands. "No!"

"'Fraid so," Clay said softly.

There was a moment of silence, along with a bit of guilt, until Meg knocked her knuckles on the wall.

"Time to go," she whispered with narrowed eyes.

Jack was well aware of the intruders on his ship. So, he had set up a series of traps and back-up traps for his many enemies, and he had spent a bit of time concocting rules for elaborate battles to which he might challenge them, if there came a need to do so. He sat waiting in the throne-like chair on the massive control deck, surrounded by guard bots. The room was much larger than necessary, with a tall glass ceiling sectioned into polygons, and floor space for an Olympic skating rink.

Jack monitored their progress on a series of color surveillance screens. He had finally taken the time to shave _neatly_ and completely, and in brand new clothes he looked rather spiffy.

He didn't hear them, but he did see them, so he spun around in his chair just as Chase and Seek came onto the deck.

"I suppose I miscalculated you two," Jack said, tapping his fingertips together. "My plan was to let you destroy each other, but I guess we just weren't on the same page."

"God forbid," Chase muttered as he and Seek gradually distanced themselves from each other while casually advancing on Jack.

"How old are you now, Jack?" Seek asked darkly. "Twenty? Twenty-one? I bet you haven't had you're wisdom teeth out yet…"

"I'll bet he hasn't had his _baby _teeth out yet!" came another voice from up above.

Down dropped Meg Kake, fresh out of bullet-time, landing less than ten feet in front of Jack.

"What the? Who the hell are you?" Jack demanded, scooting up in his chair a bit.

Meg tossed her dreads.

"Humph! I knew you wouldn't recognize me, now that I'm too good for you! You're in _big_ trouble, Jack Spicer!"

Jack cocked his head to the side.

"Meg?" he whispered, completely bewildered.

Nutmeg Kake, thanks to the power of the Hero Glass, had transformed into her full potential. Her clothes were still insane, and her boots were still spring-loaded, but her adult features made her almost unrecognizable. She was much taller and older, about eighteen or nineteen, with long red dreadlocks that went all the way down her back. Her build looked athletic, but at the same time she had curves and a genuine hourglass shape. All her childish features and mannerism seemed to have been swept away, and on top of it all, she was actually rather attractive.

She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently.

"I hope you've had your fun being ruler of the world, Mister Jack, because it's time for you to grow up and quit playing around!"

With that, Meg lunged at Jack. The bots that rushed to stopped her missed completely as she flickered in and out of bullet-time. In her prime, Meg could control just how fast she moved. Instead of 3,000 fps, she could slow down to 600 fps, which is still fast enough to dodge most obstacles, but without vanishing completely.

Jack shot up and out of the chair a split second before she smashed into him. He landed on the back of the chair and balanced for a moment before zipping off with the Jet Pak.

The moment Meg made her move, the room flooded with all kinds of Jack bots. They were unusual SMARTs, modified to look more like Jack Bots, only some had legs and others were over ten feet tall.

Meg shot at one in a high-speed flying kick and smashed it to pieces. But, before she turned to the next, she saw the robot pieces come back to life! They scooted across the floor, reunited with each other, and came together to form a whole new robot.

"That's different," Meg said quickly, shocked and startled by the new technology.

"Pretty cool, huh? I took all of Patience's old designs and made them only about a hundred times better. Those other robots were a good start, but they had about as much extra gadgetry as a plastic fork."

Seek, on a second floor balcony overlooking the deck, snarled at Jack and gripped the railing. She glanced quickly at Chase, who, on the opposite balcony, was blatantly laughing at her.

"Put a size twelve sock in it, Chase Young, and focus on getting that Master Pen back!" she snapped.

Chase rolled his eyes and leaned casually on the rail.

"What? You don't want to stay and watch the show for a while?"

Just as he spoke, all the Xiaolin monks burst through the door, flanked by Good Seek and Chester.

Jack, hovering just above his chair, held up a hand to call off his robots for a moment.

"I sure hope you've come to surrender, you obnoxious little dust mites, because you'd have to be utterly retarded to think you can defeat me!"

"You're the one who's 'utterly retarded', Jack!" Kimiko snapped, pointing an accusing finger. "We're going to stop you once and for all!"

Jack got a good laugh out of this and had to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, right," he laughed. "Just like all the other times you were going to stop me once and for all. How long has it been now since you haven't been able to beat me? Two years? Feels like just yesterday I dropped a warhead on the cheeseball."

"We know all your tricks now, Jack!" Raimundo shouted. "And, we've got all six elemental Dragons! With Good Seek to melt your robots on the spot, and our combined talents to overcome your every Shen Gong Wu, you don't stand a chance!"

Jack raised one eyebrow slowly. He saw Good Seek and figured that one out, but what about Meg?

"Meg?" he exclaimed, looking to her as she walked to stand by the others. "What are you doing? What is this?"

"You should have thought twice before you decided to ignore me and lock me up and generally be a big jerk! I used to think you were pretty damn cool, but it turns out you're just a self-centered, egotistical maniac!"

"Well, YEAH!" Jack hollered, rushing forward with the Jet Pak and landing on the floor easily about ten feet from the monks. "They turned you against me! I mean, give me a _break_, Meg! _They're_ the ones who were so mean to you! If they're ever civil to you again it's only because they need you to make that Dragon Formation thing! I'm ruling the _world_ now, Meg! You're a very high maintenance personality, but I can't give you 100 of my attention 100 of the time! Jeez!"

Everything Jack said made perfect sense to Meg, and she gave it careful consideration for a moment. But, the one thing he left out was the word 'sorry', so she turned her nose in the air.

"Chester feels the same way, too," she said hotly.

"Chester?" Jack repeated. "What?" He glanced up and saw the big, brand new and tough looking robot that waved sheepishly at him. "That's not Chester!" he scoffed. "Chester is an ancient piece of junk I made from a juicer and an office chair!" With that, he took to the air again and hovered gracefully a few feet back.

Jack forgot that he had also given Chester an emotion chip, and the robot's digital heart split in two at Jack's cold words.

"That does it," the robot said in his flat, toneless voice. "I have had enough. Let's blow him up!"

Jack cracked a sly grin and snickered. That was just the cue he was waiting for.

"Bring it, bitches!" he exclaimed, throwing his hand in the air. At that signal, about two dozen of his improved Jack Bots dropped down from their hiding places in the high ceiling.

"Jack Bots! Destroy them!"

Immediately, Omi, Raimundo, Kimiko, and Clay leapt forward and into battle. In a matter of seconds, the control deck became a chaotic scene of laser blasts, ice, steam, fire, smoke, wind, and a series an interesting on-board earthquakes, all decorated with much jumping, flipping, and kicking.

Good Seek held back nervously, not exactly a born fighter. So, Meg had to pull her along by the wrist.

"Just melt the robots, alright? But don't melt the walls of the ship, otherwise we'll all get sucked out into the stratosphere!"

Good Seek's eyes went wide as Meg yanked her by the wrist along the edge of the wall, narrowly missing a few stray laser shots by less than a second.

"Is this really necessary?" Good Seek stammered, ducking her head at the roar of a robot breaking apart. "I mean, what's the big deal? Everyone is just angry at everyone else- I mean, isn't that what this is all about? The monks hate Jack because he's a jerk and they hate my evil side because she turned on them, and you hate Jack because he was mean to you, and Chase was angry at Seek for giving Jack all the new robots, but Seek only gave them to Jack in the first place because she had an old grudge against Chase for something he posted of her online, and now they have to work together to get the Master Pen from Jack…"

She stopped abruptly as a combined Fire and Earth move all but flattened a Jack Bot.

"And I'm stuck in the middle of it all!" Good Seek screamed so loud that the battle actually slowed for a few seconds, distracted. "Don't mind me," she muttered sheepishly, backing against the wall.

The fight resumed to full mayhem, and Jack sat back to watch it all from above the main entrance. He was hovering, but also had one foot placed on the keystone of the door, loosely anchored in place. He took the Master Pen Shen Gong Wu out from his jacket breast pocket and began trying to decide between a flamethrower or an RPG.

Suddenly, he was knocked to the ground from above. He slammed to the floor and a familiar hand snatched the Master Pen from him.

"You bastard! That's mine!" Jack shouted, jumping to his feet as Chase made off.

"Ya snooze, ya loose!" Seek called to him from the balcony. Chase jumped up to the second level in three easy, logically impossible strides, but refused to let Seek have the Pen.

"Master Pen or not," Jack said strongly, hovering before them for a moment, "I still have the Omni Wu, so the Master Pen isn't even necessary!"

Chase glanced down at the Pen and then back to Jack, holding the black Omni Wu with his thumb and ring finger.

"The Omni Wu _created by_ the Master Pen," he laughed, pointing the Pen at Jack. "Master Pen!"

In that flash of green light, Chase eliminated the Omni Wu.

"Easy come, easy go, Jack," he hissed.

"Right you are!" Meg Kake yelled as she zipped by. Moving insanely fast, Meg made a pass at Chase and snatched the Master Pen away. "If anyone deserves the Master Pen, it's me," she said, waving the Pen a little in front of her nose.

"Meg!" Jack snapped. "Don't you mean that you're stealing it back for me because you've been on my side all along?"

Meg went into bullet time and took what felt to her life five or six minutes to consider the matter. The battle below stopped like a paused movie, and even the heat waves from Jack's Jet Pak were frozen.

"I think it's time I stopped letting Jack push me around," she thought out loud, leaning on a rail. She tapped her chin with the Pen as she spoke. "Jack isn't the boss of me. He's just the boss of the whole world. Though, it _is_ good to have friends who control the world. But, at the same time, I can't let him tell me what to do! He doesn't appreciate me! He'd probably sooner use me than care about what happens to me! All right! That does it! If he really does care about me then he won't beat me up. But, if he just doesn't care, then he can _have_ the world!"

Meg flickered out of bullet time and made her decision known.

"You want the Master Pen, Jack?" she asked, getting up and standing on the rail. "Then go _get it_!"

Meg threw the Master Pen as hard as she could straight into the battle below.

Jack, Seek, and Chase dropped down from the second level and went after it. The Pen spun down through laser blasts, spirals of fire, shards of metal, and clouds of steam, pursued all the way. It hit the floor between the talons of a tall Jack Bot and was quickly kicked someplace else. In a hectic kick-the-can like hunt, Jack, Seek, and Chase went after the Wu, all the while dodging the monks or the robots and trying to navigate through the considerable smokescreen that had built up from the destruction.

Seek dove for the Pen but missed it by half a second as it was knocked across the floor. Jack caught sight of it and, flying around one of his Jack Bots, reached out and grabbed it…at the same instant one of his own Jack Bots grabbed it.

"What the hell?" Jack shouted. "Hey! Back off, soldier!"

"No!" the robot retorted, leaning down and glaring at its master.

This time, the battle really came to a stop. All the other Jack Bots stopped and looked, as did the monks, at this Jack Bot, Chester, who refused orders.

"What did you just say?" Jack growled.

"I said no!" the robot repeated. "I fact, I challenge you, Jack!"

"You can't challenge me," Jack retorted. "You…"

But, he glanced down, and sure enough, the Master Pen was glowing light yellow.

Omi jumped up from the wreckage of the right and stood atop a fallen robot.

"Challenge him to a battle of truth or lie!" Omi called to Chester.

"We'll fight on Chester's team!" Kimiko called out.

Raimundo and Clay looked at each other quizzically.

"Who's Chester?" Rai asked and Clay shrugged.

"Challenge him to a game of DDR!" Meg called out. "We'll _own_!"

Suddenly, someone who no one expected to honor the situation with his opinion spoke up.

"Don't challenge him to a Xiaolin Showdown," Chase snapped, approaching the two. "Instead, Jack, this robot challenges you to a Heylin Homicide."

"A what?" Jack repeated instantly.

"A Heylin Homicide," Chase began to explain in his perpetually irritated manner as he walked away again, "is very simple and _very_ effective. It is impossible to cheat in such a fight because there are _no_ rules whatsoever. The winner is whoever is left standing in the end, but this is the catch: unlike your PG-7 Xiaolin Showdowns, a Heylin Homicide can't guarantee that everyone will come out alive."

Jack looked quickly around the room. Aside from his robots, he was all alone in this fight.

"All right, _Chester,_" he snarled, thinking fast. "I accept your Heylin Homicide. The stakes are…If I win, I keep the Master Pen, all the Shen Gong Wu, and planet earth! And, you stupid monks can never bother me again! And, if your side wins, then I'll leave the world alone and all the Shen Gong Wu will be deactivated: reset and hidden again for another generation to find! …Along with Wuya's puzzle box!"

"Deal!"

"HEYLIN HOMICIDE!"


	30. The End

Chapter 30. The End.

If Jack Spicer was victorious, then the Xiaolin Monks could never challenge him again. Jack would keep all the Shen Gong Wu, and, finally, Jack would be the undisputed ruler of planet Earth.

If the Xiaolin Monks won, all the Shen Gong Wu, via the magic of the Master Pen, would be deactivated and returned to new hiding places all over the planet, including Wuya's puzzle box. Jack would have to give up his domination of earth, and, eventually, peace and balance would return to Earth.

These were the terms of the Heylin Homicide that Jack Spicer laid down aboard the Mother SMART, drifting through Earth's upper atmosphere.

"Wait a second! Aren't we part of this fight?" Evil Seek exclaimed, finding herself and Chase on the outskirts of the battle.

"Apparently not, bi-atch!" Raimundo laughed down at her.

As soon as the fight was declared, all those on the Mother SMART deck were transported to the flat top of the ship. It wasn't too different from fighting on an open field, only it was exceptionally windy and cold. There were no twists or special complications to the battle: just a straightforward fight to the end.

"What a rip off!" Seek snarled. "I go through all that trouble to get _up_ here, and we get _excluded_ from the fight that determines the fate of the world!"

"Perhaps," Chase said calmly, "but if you _were_ in the fight, whose side would you be on? You couldn't possibly fight _both_ sides."

"Good point," Seek agreed almost instantly, taking another cigar out of her breast pocket.

"Gong Yi Tempai!"

At those words, the rim of the battleground began to rise, lifting Seek and Chase high above the combatants. A solid metal wall over a hundred feet tall and five feet thick thus contained the fight.

"That's more like it," Seek said, sitting down on the wall and letting her feet dangle over the edge. "I'm putting my money on Jack. I still can't stand him, but he'll fight dirty, so he's bound to win."

Chase looked down at her with a glare, and just for the sake of an argument, contradicted her.

"So you think you're modern technology is superior to the ancient martial arts?"

"No," Seek sat back. "I think Jack wants it more."

From the very start, the Heylin Homicide was a fight to remember.

"Bots!" Jack ordered from the cockpit in the chest of a fifty-foot Controls Bot. "Bring out all the battle Shen Gong Wu! I don't want any of that Eagle Scope or Lunar Locket crap!"

In the meantime, the four monks were quick to attempt the Dragon Deity formation.

"As long as the six of us remain in the formation, we should be able to get past any Shen Gong Wu Jack uses!" Kimiko reminded them quickly. The group had to jump apart quickly, though, when a laser blast scorched the ground beneath them.

"Quickly! We don't have an instance to spare!" Omi shouted.

Because they all knew what he was trying to say was true, no one bothered to correct Omi.

"Dragon of Wind! Dragon's Wings!"

In a whirl of white wind, Raimundo was engulfed in the ghostly body of the powerful wind dragon.

"Dragon of Water! Dragon's Blood!"

A rushing wave of water and ice surged up from nowhere to float Omi in the heart of the fierce water dragon.

"Dragon of Fire! Dragon's Breath!"

With a burst of flames, the blindingly bright and lithe fire dragon lifted Kimiko into the air.

"Dragon of Earth! Dragon's Talons!"

The whole Mother SMART shook as the rock body, held together by hidden bones of diamond, of the earth dragon incased Clay in heavy armor.

"Dragon of Metal! Dragon's Body!"

Good Seek vanished inside the metal dragon made of bolts and gears that flexed with joints and flew with magnetism.

"Dragon of Light! Dragon's Soul!"

Adult Meg receded into a blinding light that took on the shape of a dragon with scales that reflected the entire light spectrum and caused every person and object in the enclosed battlefield to throw a pitch-black shadow.

Each Dragon took on their form simultaneously, so Jack had very little time to respond.

"Attack! Attack!" Jack ordered a hundred robots at once. "Rip them apart! Strength in numbers! Overwhelm them! Don't let them combine their powers! It'll be like another bad Japanese Transformers climax where each vehicle forms a different part of the body, and I won't be able to _handle_ that! Destroy! Destroy!"

Swarms of robots, of every shape and size, came flooding into the battle. Some of the designs were old, familiar Jack Bots, while others were brand new and never released models with bodies and guns that looked like they belonged in an intense video game.

"Show 'im what y've got!" Clay called to Good Seek as he crushed an oncoming robot like a ball of tin foil.

Good Seek held out her hands and reduced a wave of robots to a puddle of metal and the flat, plastic squares on which computer chips are built up.

Kimiko flew straight into the chest of a thirty-foot Jack Bot and melted it from the core, out. Omi finished that robot off by hosing it with icy water, causing the metal body to crumple up with a deafening crunch.

Clay could knock apart any Jack Bot easily enough, no matter how large, but it was flattening them that was effective against the ones with the ability to reform. Raimundo could rip them apart with Mount Washington-force winds, and a wall of super-condensed air actually stopped bullets.

Meg, however, made an interesting discovery. As the Dragon f Light, she was invincible. Every robot, laser, bullet, rocket, and bomb passed straight through her. But, as a result, she was incapable of attacking the robots. If she tried to hit them, she met with zero resistance and passed straight through.

"Well, that sucks," Meg muttered to herself. "At least I'm sparkly and colorful."

"Quick!" Raimundo shouted. "Spicer's gonna break out the Shen Gong Wu as soon as those robots get back! Join up!"

Busting through robots as they went, the six Dragons reunited and began the formation.

Each called out his or her specialty again, only this time added "Deity Formation" to the end. In a single sunburst of pale, multicolored light, the Deity Dragon took shape.

Fire was the head, breath, teeth, and rolling mane that ran all the way to the tale. Wind was the powerful wings that spread from the spine and lifted the whole creation with total ease. Earth was the deadly claws, as well as the basis for the arms, shoulders, and spine. Metal filled in the gaps of the body, shot spine scales all the way to the tail, and completed the body. Water was the blood running throughout the dragon, physically binding each element together, as well as balancing them. Finally, Light was the very soul, combining six minds into one and brining the Elemental Dragon to life. Light took no specific place in the Dragon, but was instead _throughout_, occupying the entire form without taking up even the smallest space.

With the addition of Metal and Light, the Dragon now radiated a light of its own as well as reflecting everything from the Jack Bot's lasers to the sun.

"Finally!" Jack exclaimed. "A worthy enemy!" Reaching into his jacket, Jack pulled out a pair of snappy black sunglasses to fend off the light from the Dragon.

"What are you talking about?" came the distant voice of Kimiko. "You're robots are bugs and we're a windshield."

"Give up now, Jack, and you won't get hurt," warned Raimundo. "Even though we fight with honor, there are still no rules."

Jack laughed and directed his robot up so he met them at eye level.

"You are _all _idiots!" he snapped, broadcasting his voice as usual. "Your plan isn't exactly a surprise to me! You only repeated it about fifty times in loud voices for I-don't-know-how-many months now! Do you seriously think I'm just going to jump into your trap? See, I have the upper hand here, kids, because _you don't_ know _my_ plan!"

Jack leaned forward and held down a button.

"Move in for phase one!"

As Jack was speaking, a number of small Jack Bots came to his robot and loaded it up with dozens of Shen Gong Wu. By entered each one into the computer's system, wired with SMART technology, Jack had each and every one ready to use at the push of a button.

"Let's just flatten him and get this over with!" Meg's voice snapped.

The Element Dragon spread its claws and launched a wave of Seek's power that was guaranteed to destroy every metal object it passed over.

But, it had no effect on Jack's robot.

"Pretty cool, no? As though I'm dumb enough to set up shop in a _metal_ robot!"

"It's not metal?" each dragon cried out at once.

"Then what the hell is it?" Raimundo exclaimed.

"If I told you, it wouldn't ruin the magic, wouldn't it? But, I _can_ tell you that it's made out of the same stuff as…"

Jack's robot leapt back about a quarter mile to make room for bay doors opening up from the ship.

"All of these!" Jack laughed as the robots of 'phase one' made their appearance.

From the surrounding wall, Evil Seek, who had lit her cigar on a stay laser blast, nearly did a backwards somersault.

"Jack!" she screamed, jumping to her feet. "How could you make those? It's a damn good thing you own the world because Steven Spielberg would _eat you alive_!"

"What are they?" Chase asked, eyeing Seek's behavior suspiciously.

"They're…" Seek was half panting. "That's an Imperial Fleet!"

And it was.

There were AT-AT Imperial Walkers, AT-STs, octagon-winged Ty-fighters, tri-finned Shuttles, miniature Star Destroyers and about six Super Star Destroyers of about thirty feet, and even a single honorary black Ty-fighter with inward curving wings.

"Isn't this _so cool?_" Jack nearly screamed. "At first, I was going to get ships and weapons from Halo and the Covenant, but then I figured that those games were more of a fad. I had a few other ideas, too, like building the robot from 'The Incredibles', or maybe some cool **Urkin** Empire 'Invader Zim' stuff, but- hey, c'mon- _nothing_ can best _Star Wars_. I was going to make some of the ships that appear in the new movies, but then I remembered that the new movies sucked unprecedented wind, so I scratched those. And, after I win this battle, I think I'll build me a life-sized Death Star!"

The mock Imperial Fleet flew straight at the monks, not too unlike a swarm of mosquitoes and hornets equipped with lasers.

"Don't say it, Rai!" Kimiko warned as wave after wave of Ty fighters looped around the Dragons. "I'm warning you!"

But, how could Raimundo resist.

"Ah!" he quoted. "There's too many of them!"

"Concentrate all firepower on those Super Star Destroyers!" Clay laughed, swiping at one with the Dragon's massive talons.

The monks were actually cracking up a little as they smashed away at the fleet, though Omi didn't get most of it.

"That's right, losers," Jack muttered to himself as he dropped from the back of his robot. "Laugh it up, because I got _this_ one from Star Wars, too. And _you're_ the Death Star."

As Jack hovered behind his robot, hidden from the monks, one of his Jack Bots handed him the Changing Chopsticks. Another handed him his Evil Toolbox.

"Never mock the Chopsticks!" Jack snickered as he took the toolbox. "Changing Chopsticks!"

In a white flash, Jack and his toolbox were shrunken down to the size of a grain of rice. The single black Ty-fighter approached and let him hop aboard.

Zipping around and into the fight, Jack flew straight for the monk's Dragon form, weaving through waves of other tiny ships and dodging a few attacks that weren't meant for him. The ship was so small that it could land right on the Dragon's back, in the shadow of a spine scale, without notice.

Jack jumped out with his toolbox under one arm and ordered the ship to leave and return only when he signaled for it.

"This all began when I decided to find an alternate to Shen Gong Wu," Jack dictated to himself thoughtfully as he knelt down on the metal skin of the Dragon. "Sure, they're fun for shrinking and turning into a monkey, but I'd lost faith…" he paused as he selected a tool, "in my prodigy-like skills of metalwork!"

Lighting up his blowtorch with a flint clicker, he went to work boring a hole through a thin, numb place where metal skin converged with stone bone. It was Jack's manhole into the inner workings of the Elemental Dragon.

Flinging the scale-like piece of metal away, Jack packed up his torch and dropped down through the hole with his toolbox held over his head.

Inside, matters weren't quite anatomically accurate. The watery blood flowed throughout the body in self-contained streams, and Jack could see the stone shield set in the Dragon's collarbone from where Clay controlled the rock arms. Behind him was a water heart, with Omi in the center, pumping blood throughout. Jack zipped about with his Jet Pack, totally unnoticed by even the Omni-present spirit of Meg Kake. He knew he was near the head of the Dragon because of the intense light and heat from its fiery mane. But, he was looking for the metal bone at the top of the spine, which branched the remainder of the Dragon's body.

"I guess you could call it the central power tower!" Jack laughed, flying up towards where Good Seek filled the physical gaps in the Dragon.

There was a tiny gap between the metal bone and metal skin at the top of the spine, more than enough room for Rice Jack. Landing on the back of the shield, as it truly was, Jack had to steady himself against the constant turning and jerking of the Dragon's head.

"Bet you never saw this one coming, Xiaolin suckers!" Jack laughed as he put his goggles over his eyes and took out some tools. Getting through a metal spine bone would be much more difficult than the surface skin.

But, luck was with Jack Spicer that day.

"No _way_!" Jack nearly laughed. "It's an access panel! I see they never counted on my _genius_ skills finding such a small flaw!"

Jack cackled evilly and swapped his torches for a power drill. Setting it to run in reverse, he pulled up six screws from a panel no more than a centimeter square.

"What's the point?" he wondered as he let the screws and panel slide away and drop into the distance. Taking just a hammer and a box of tacks with him, Jack dropped through the next panel.

He entered into a pitch-black space, but the light from his Jet Pak illuminated enough of Good Seek's back that he could tell where he was. Rising up about a foot, he was right behind her ear, but she noticed nothing.

Jack held a bunch of tacks in his teeth and put the box in his pocket, approaching the veins behind Good Seek's ear and below her temple.

"Sorry about this, Good Seek, but Evil's got to do what Evil's got to do."

And just what Evil had to do was the rather fine-tuned art of acupuncture. Somewhere along the line, during the fight for knife-throwing lesions that turned into figure skating, Jack picked up a single useful tidbit on pressure points. With a hammer and tacks, Jack put a row of pinpricks up behind Good Seek's ear that first paralyzed her, and then knocked her unconscious.

As Chase and Seek Patience watched the pointless battle of Jack's _Star Wars_ toys against the Elemental Dragon, they both reached the conclusion that something was amiss.

"Does this seem not quite right to you?" Evil Seek asked, shaking ash off her cigar.

"In so many ways," Chase replied.

Just then, the little Imperial Fleet retreated to the edges of the massive arena. And, at the same time, the Dragon lurched and reared up, arching its back. Like water retreating on plastic, the metal that filled the gaps between the other elements began to quickly recede, drawing back towards the top of the spine. A few seconds later, as tension mounted in the sudden, shocking silence, Good Seek dropped right out from the Dragon's body and landed on the Mother SMART's hard top with a distant bang.

Chase and Seek looked at each other for a moment, silently passing the message 'they're in trouble now' to each other.

"Good Seek!" Kimiko screamed. "What happened to her? What's wrong?"

"Looks like she passed out or somethin'," Raimundo said, now that he could see straight through the Dragon to the ground.

"Looks like she fell asleep," Clay muttered.

Suddenly, Jack appeared in a flash of white light just twenty feet from the incomplete Dragon Formation.

"Looks more like sabotage, if you ask me!" he laughed, brandishing his hammer and spitting out a remaining tack. He passed his toolbox and the Changing Chopsticks to a Jack Bot and called his Controls robot to come pick him up.

"They were right when they said that the Dragon Deity Formation was the key to beating all my robots and Shen Gong Wu, but no one ever counted on the power of power tools, did they?"

The oval shield in the chest of the Controls Bot opened up and let Jack take his seat once more. And, since he was right up in front of the stunned monks, he decided to have a little fun. He had seen the insides of the Dragon, and with the metal skin gone, he didn't need to reach in blindly. Controlling the robot's right arm, he thrust a massive metal grip into the Dragon's chest and yanked out Omi!

"It's a downhill slide from here, Opi!" Jack laughed, face to face with the baffled little monk. "All forces move in and _attack!_"

Every single fighting robot in Jack Spicer's possession aboard the Mother SMART swarmed over the walls of the arena to fight. Chase and Seek didn't bat an eye as hordes of Mega SMARTs and Killer Jack Bots blackened out the sun, but the incredible wind of all the machines together actually put out Seek's cigar.

Jack laughed manically as his Evil Army came down on the Dragon. Water rained down from the body in a solid sheet, steaming near the head.

"Stick together, guys!" Raimundo called out. "We can take them!"

"We've always pulled out on top in th' past!" Clay shouted, raking the Dragon's Talons into the side of a regular SMART.

"Yes!" Omi said. "Jack Spicer make have the technology, but we…"

A Mega SMART, sixty stories tall, dropped down from above and smashed its feet right into Clay, knocking the shoulders from the Dragon, severing the head and disconnecting the wings.

"Son of a…!" they all heard Raimundo, but the last word was drowned out by the stone shoulders and arms crashing to the ground. Good Seek was spared being flattened by about three inches.

Jack SMARTs slammed into the monks, knocking them away from each other quickly. With the Dragon no longer intact, Meg returned to her physical form, but she still passed straight through objects.

A regular SMART came up on Raimundo from behind and tried to trap him in its cockpit, but Rai snapped the blast screen clean off with a powerful gust. So, instead, the SMART turned around, flipped its head upside down on the pivot point between its legs, and dropped down on top of Raimundo.

"Ruby of Ramsey!" Jack ordered, and instantly his Controls Bot used that Shen Gong Wu to pin the SMART down on Raimundo and trap him in the hollow of the cockpit.

That trick wouldn't work on Omi, though, as he could simply reduce himself to water and drain out through the smallest gaps. But, neither water nor ice had much of an effect in the super-heated air from SMART jets. He realized that these were similar tactics to the first Xiaolin Showdown with the Element SMART, just in a different medium. Plus, by that point in the battle, every monk was worn down from the effort of taking on the Deity Formation.

Clay was treated to a rather cruel pick-up-and-dump maneuver by a Mega SMART, in which he was carried just about out of the atmosphere and driven back into the body of the Mother SMART at a devastating speed. Kimiko's fire melted the Jack Bots and Killer Jack Bots with little trouble, but the unusual materials of the SMARTs were a little more challenging. But, when a Mega SMART sacrificed all its coolant for the cause, Kimiko was fully extinguished in a nauseating downpour of chemicals.

Jack went to throw out another command, when he realized that the battlefield had fallen strangely silent.

"Did I win…?" he wondered cautiously. He quickly scanned for signs of movement, and his eyes fell upon a pair of befuddled Mini SMARTs that had accidentally shot each other trying to take out Meg Kake.

"You're in trouble, Jack Spicer," Meg shouted at him.

"What're you gonna do?" Jack teased. "Dance on me?"

"I'll throw a rave on your grave!"

At the speed of light, Meg jumped from 'over there' to right in front of Jack.

"Now, really, Meg," Jack sighed sarcastically, putting his hands behind his head. "We don't need to fight! I mean, would you rather live in a world controlled by your best friend or your worst enemy?"

"You're not my friend, Jack! You were using me from the very beginning! As soon as you found out that I was the Dragon of Light- you only hung out with me to keep me away from the monks!"

Jack smirked and waved his hand through Meg's body.

"I'm glad you give me that much credit," he said sincerely, "because I really do want to be your friend and chill with you. I just haven't had time lately."

Meg was taken aback a bit and she cocked her head to the side.

"Really?"

"NO!"

Jack through his head back and laughed, feeling nothing as Meg tried to slap him. After a sharp sigh, Meg returned to a solid form and reached back to slap Jack as hard as she could. But the Killer Jack Bot that had been waiting for Jack's signal opened fire and knocked the now-solid Meg all the way to the ground.

"Ha ha!" Jack laughed, throwing his hands in the air. "I've got you all…"

"Not so fast, Jack Spicer!" Omi warned.

Jack looked up, shocked, to see some of his SMARTs incased in ice and Omi drifting in the air just a few feet away.

"If there are no rules in a Heylin Homicide, then I challenge you to a contest within a contest!"

"Oh, great. This should be rich."

"I challenge you to a game of…tag. We play in a Smoke Screen and whoever is _it_ at the end of three minutes loses!"

Jack's jaw dropped a little.

"Tag? Are you serious?"

"Yes, and no Tag-Tag-Backs!"

"Shen Gong Wu?"

"No!"

"Robots? Weapons?"

"No!"

"Okay, fine, whatever! I've got way longer arms than you anyway. Let's go!"

All the robots withdrew to the nearest edge of the arena, but Meg and Good Seek were left where they had fallen.

"You may have beat me last time, but this time, with no technology at your hands, you shall not win!" Omi declared.

"Three minutes on the clock," Jack said officially, looking up at a Mega SMART with the time displayed on its blast shield. "And…go."

Out of nowhere, a huge cloud of smoke grew from a point in the air directly between Jack and Omi. It filled most of the arena in just a few seconds, and soon the gray and orange cloud was spilling over the walls like dry ice in a glass.

"You're it!"

"You're it!"

"You're it!"

"You're it!"

"You're it!"

"You're it!"

"You're it!"

"You're it!"

"You're it!"

The back and forth of voices was so fast that it was sometimes easy to get the voices confused. Seek and Chase watched intently from the sidelines, but the smoke was so thick that neither could see more than a few inches in. Sometimes, they glimpsed light from Jack's Jet Pak or from Omi's dots, but beyond that it didn't seem as though their movement even disrupted the cover.

The minutes ticked down. In the last thirty seconds, Jack quit saying "You're it!", and soon Omi did the same, simply to save breath. The dense air carried sounds well, so they could hear every quick breath and every rustle of clothing, but not much more.

The last ten seconds came, then the last five. Four, three, two…

They heard Jack yell out loud, either in pain or in effort- and then one second- there was a thud as someone hit the ground hard…

"Time Up!" the Mega SMART announced in its digital voice. Instantly, the smokescreen began to recede. And, as it thinned consumed itself, the victor of the challenge, and therefore the Heylin Homicide was revealed.

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And it was Jack Spicer.

"OH MY GOD!" Jack laughed, throwing his fists in the air. "I WON! And it wasn't by default! It wasn't because someone else messed up! It wasn't because someone else pretended to be me, or possessed me, or helped me out, any anything! I _won_!"

Omi picked his head up carefully. The walls were retreating back into the Mother SMART, and the Master Pen reappeared for Jack to claim it. Omi looked around to see Good Seek on his left and Meg Kake on his right, both the former on her face and the later on her back.

"This is not good…" Omi muttered.

The other monks were released by the SMART bots, which retreated back into the ship. When they saw what had happened, they barely bothered to get up.

"You lazy bums better get up," Jack laughed, landing on the ship and walking into the strong upper-atmosphere winds. "You don't want to be late for your first day of school, do you?"

"What…?" Raimundo moaned, looking over at Jack with a glare.

"That's right! Now that I rule the world and therefore control every aspect of everyone's lives, I'm sending all four of you to your home countries so you can go to…public High School! Take _that_! Now you can suffer through all the shit that _I_ had to put up when _I_ was your age and you were just prancing around in your PJs at that Temple! Oh, burn!" Jack paused and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "But, you better not tell them who you are- you know, the kids who are indirectly responsible for Jack Spicer taking over the world- because they'll dump you in trash bins. They'll need a dumpster for Clay, though."

Jack walked away laughing at the top of his lungs, too ecstatic to contain himself.

Meanwhile, Evil Seek was wondering if her Good Side was dead or just unconscious. And, she tested by kicking her other self a bit. She noticed the tacks behind Good Seek's only because she could sense the metal, but she didn't feel like removing them.

"Forgetting something, Spicer?" Chase called over to Jack before he returned to the control deck.

"Um, defeat enemies, check! Conquer planet, check," Jack listed off on his fingers. "Nope, don't think so!"

Chase put his foot on Meg's side and gave her a hard push that slid her body all the way over to Jack.

"Oh…" Jack muttered, glancing down at her. "Is she dead?"

But, when Jack looked up, Chase Young and both the Seeks were already gone.

"That was fast, even for _them_," Jack muttered, crouching next to Meg. "Yoo-hoo! Anybody home? Hello-ooo?" Jack knocked on Meg's head and tugged on a dread, but there was no response.

"Uh oh," Jack whispered.

"He warned you," Kimiko snapped in a deliberately annoying tone. "He warned you that people die in Heylin Homicides, and I think you killed Good Seek _and _Meg Kake!"

"Good Seek is just unconscious!" Jack yelled back. "Unfortunately," he added to himself.

The monks made a point of getting away from the Mother SMART quickly, as they had no intention of going to High School. Ever.

"Hey, Meg, quit playing around!" Jack said angrily. "You can be _mad_ at me, just don't…"

"It's hard to imagine someone like Meg Kake dying," Seek Patience said, walking up to Jack.

"Where did you _come_ from?" he asked, looking around.

"I still have SMARTs of my own, Jack," Seek said with a grin. "And now, thanks to you, I plan on making a fortune in real estate equipped with ANTI-SMART technology. That's what drug companies do, you know. They invent and illness and then they sell the cure."

"Got a cure for death?" Jack asked sarcastically.

"Yeah," Seek replied immediately, "but Meg will eat you alive the way I _almost_ did." Seek let this sink in for a moment. "You've got the Master Pen, kid! You'll think of something." She turned away and walked towards Chase, waiting by the SMART.

"Wait," Jack said, finally tearing his eyes away from Meg. "Does it matter?"

Seek stopped abruptly and turned around in two steps.

"What?"

"Do I…I took over the world. No one else has ever done that. No one else probably will. But…" Jack paused and looked back down at Meg. "Does it even matter? In the end, we all end up…"

"Jack," Chase interrupted him, surprisingly. "You're asking the wrong person. Seek will tell you, no, it doesn't matter. Soon, you'll be dead and everything will go back to the way it was and you'll be forgotten."

Jack looked shocked, but Seek was smiling.

"He's got my number down, that's for sure!"

"But," Chase went on, now standing just beyond Seek, "she hasn't been around as long as I have, so what the hell does she know? Everything 'matters', Jack. As insignificant as it may seem, every action and every word matters. I've seen hundreds of generations live, age, and die: I know what I'm talking about. Events that took place fifteen hundred years ago still 'matter' today, don't they? Everything that has ever happened in your life, and will _ever_ happen, is somehow a result of what transpired thousands, millions of years ago, in some ways more direct than others."

Jack was impressed and a bit confused by Chase's sudden change of attitude towards him. Could this be his long sought after respect?

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because," Chase said, turning away as Seek started up the SMART, "you were never going to figure it out for yourself, and you were showing figurative soft under belly by giving a rat's ass about Meg Kake!"

Chase hit a nerve. Suddenly, Jack was so deeply insulted, he couldn't even understand it. In all the years he had been angry at the world for his dirty deal in life, he had never known such a burning loathing as he did just then.

Chase jumped up into the SMART bot just as Jack rushed at him.

"SMART bots! Attack!" Jack screamed as Seek's SMART got to its feet and took flight. But, every SMART that pursued melted like a ice cream left out in the sun as soon as it neared Seek.

Jack cursed under his breath and called off the robots.

"Ah, forget about them!" Jack hissed. "They're just stuck up and jealous that _I_ took over the world. _I'm_ the one with everything I wan…"

He cut himself off when he turned around and saw Meg again.

"Aw, hell."

Jack dragged his feet back over to Meg and dropped down beside her. He knew she was dead, but he didn't want to accept it. He had always imagined she would grow old as one of those eccentric old ladies who isn't really senile but just pretends to be in order to get her way. It just didn't seem right for the life to vanish from such a lively personality. And, just for a moment, Jack realized that he probably killed a lot of people just like Meg while taking over the world. A lot of people.

"I wonder if they throw great raves in the after life?" Jack muttered.

He glanced down and saw Meg's I-Poo poking out of her pocket. With a faint, unhappy grin, he reached down and picked it up, letting one ear piece fall by Meg as he took the other to listen.

_We are the cartoon heroes! Yeah! We are the one's who're gonna last forever!_

"We learn to run at speed of light," Jack laughed sadly along with the song. "And to fall down from any…"

He dropped the little white box and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around.

"Damn it," he scolded himself. "I destroyed Chester, too, didn't I? What was I thinking?" He looked away and looked into the distance. "I wonder where my parents are? I can't believe this! I took over the world, I finally defeated the Xiaolin Monks, I finally have everything I always wanted…!" Jack threw his hands out to the side. The Master Pen slipped out of his jacket sleeve where he'd been hiding it.

Jack glared at that pen with his red eyes, redder still from the smoke of the battle.

In a sudden fit of anger, Jack grabbed the pen and jumped to his feet. In a single powerful action, he threw the pen as far as he could.

"What good are toys if you don't have any friends to share them with?" he screamed, panting a little from emotional exhaustion.

"That's a damn good question."

Jack screamed and jumped back.

"Holy shit! You're alive!"

Meg jumped to her feet and snatched up her I-Poo.

"Damn straight I am! Watched those bullets graze right by me, and then I faked my own death! You think you can just _shoot_ me, Jack? I'm a hell of a lot faster than that!"

"You're alive!" Jack wheezed, holding his hands out in disbelief.

"Yeah, uh huh. Death isn't really my _thing_. Now, about this…"

"Meg! Stop right there!" Jack held up his hands. "How about this? Rather than you yelling at me for the nine millionth time in the last forty eight hours about how you feel betrayed and all that feminine crap, why don't we just be happy that you're alive and I'm ruler of planet earth, and go get some pudding cups?"

Meg thought about this for a moment, putting her weight on one hip. The Master Pen came sliding back along the top of the ship, bumping up against Meg's brightly colored shoe.

"You know," she began, picking it up. "Since you rule the world, we don't _have_ to eat pudding cups."

"But we will."

"We'll just eat more."

Meg was tired of her adult body- it was a cool novelty at first, but she realized now that she was in _no_ rush to grow up. So, using the Master Pen, she returned herself to her small, slightly, bright-eyed, high-pitched, and bouncy self.

"Let's go buy the remains of a giant animal," Meg suggested.

"Yeah, all those crazy elephant bones," Jack sighed thoughtfully.

They turned their backs on the scorched battlefield and walked off towards an air lock back into the Mother SMART. In the thin air of high altitudes, voices fade quickly, but Jack Spicer and NutMeg Kake seem to always find a way to make themselves heard.

"How about a pet monkey? I've always wanted a pet monkey!"

"Hey, we'll break out the Monkey Staff and _I'll_ be your pet monkey."

"Okay, now that just sounds _weird_!"

"Speaking of weird, did we ever find out what it was that Chase posted of Seek online that made her so flippin' made at him?"

"Yes, we did! I searched it out on line."

"What was it?"

"Only the funniest thing I've ever seen! But, it's really only funny if you _know_ Seek and you _know_ it's Chase behind the camera."

"Well, _what was it_?"

"I could tell you, but then Seek would eat us alive. That, or pull out all our wisdom teeth at once."

"C'mon, what was it?"

"You really want to know?"

"YES! TELL ME!"

"All right…here goes! Picture this…"

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_First, we see a simple wooden door opening and someone stocking feet as the cameraman glances up for a moment. There's steam all across the floor and building up on the mirror of a bathroom. The counter top is aqua marble and the floor it tile of a similar color. The cameraman has to whip steam off the lens, but there isn't much to see other than a bathrobe crumpled up on the floor. Then, the volume is turned up and we realize that all along someone has been singing Queen's_ Bohemian Rhapsody, _and doing her best to cover as many parts as one voice can. The camera pans up towards the fogged up shower curtain and we can just barely see the outline of a woman using a Homer Simpson soap-on-a-rope as a microphone as she gets to the_ _"Very, very frightening!" part of the song. The cameraman steps tentatively closer to the shower, wiping the lens feverishly. Suddenly, and hand reaches out and pulls back the shower curtain. The lyrics _"a devil put aside for me_" are morphed into "_HOLY HELL!",_ but that scream is lost under the cameraman's uproarious laughter. The lens is so fogged up that there's no need for censorship. The clip ends with her hand blocking out the visual and about four more seconds of angry yelling to the effect of '_give me that film, you bastard'_, mixed with his uncontrolled laughter._

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Dear Readers,

Several times over the course of the creation of this FanFiction, I was often begged, warned, not to let Jack Spicer lose. I assure you: never, at any point from beginning to end, did I ever have even the slightly whim to let Jack lose. After all, the TV show has hinted several times that the world is doomed to end up in the hands of evil, one way or another, though it likes to convince the very young viewers that there's still hope. And, we _did_ get ripped off in Omi's trip to the future in which Jack took over the world- that was just lame and upsetting, and apparently won't even happen. Jack Spicer is an amazing character, and it's mercilessly unfortunate that the creators of the show decided to make him more pathetic and idiotic as each season passed. So, this is my salute to Jack Spicer and all his hard work and amazing talent, which has gone unrecognized and unappreciated far too many times.

Also, this story is a gift to someone very special who likes to wear wild clothes and dance around in her kitchen to techno music while making breakfast. And, you _know_ it's someone the author thinks of like a sister if that author is a _Chase Young_ fan and she writes a FanFiction of over 70,000 words, all about _Jack Spicer,_ just for that someone.

Sincerely,

Dr. Patience's Secretary

P.S: I would also greatly appriciate it if, in any review you might write, you did _not_ reveal the conclusion, since there would be little point in reading the story if you already knew Jack won in the end. Thank you.


	31. The Segway Chapter! Dun Dun DUN!

The Segway Chapter

Jack Spicer had the whole world convinced that they were being ruled by some middle-aged guy who looked strangely like Orwell's Big Brother poster. With that little stroke of genius, the real Jack was free to walk about any city or town in the world without fear of being assassinated. He probably could have gone on a tour of the White House, but one of his JackSMARTS had flattened a whole half of it during his World Domination Tour a few years back. The rumor was that the president woke up the next morning- he apparently slept like a log- to a scenic view of the rest of the capitol.

So, one fine day in July, Jack went out to a beach in Sydney, Australia to relax on the sand. His hyper-active cohort, Meg Kake, was there too, only she had dared to venture into the water. She passed him just as he was kneeling down to set up his beach chair.

"I wouldn't go in there, Meg!" Jack called to her as she dashed towards the water with a pokadot inner tube around her waist.

"But the water is so clear!" Meg cried out, "and, there's no one here!"

"Yeah, that's partly what I'm worried about," Jack called back, and then added with a content sigh, "and partly _why_ we're here!"

Jack was still ten shades whiter than chalk, so the spf 5,000,000 suntan lotion was not in any way an unnecessary precaution. Without his shirt, he was liable to light on fire at the beach.

Despite all the wisdom of giant orange and black warning signs on every beach in Australia, Meg still splashed about in her usual carefree manner. She was now sixteen and Jack was twenty-three, but neither had changed too drastically in the last four years. Meg's dreadlocks were longer and she was physically more mature- _physically-_ and Jack was still lean as a rail, but much more experienced in matters such a politics, business, and how to order in bulk quantity.

"Come on in, Jack! The water's great!" Meg called out, getting ready to dunk her head in the water.

"Sure," Jack called back sarcastically, "just let me get my Bluebottle vaccination kit, shark cage, and harpoon gun!"

"You left the harpoon gun in your parent's garage!" Meg reminded him. Without waiting for a reply, she dove forward- still wearing the inner tube- and plunged under the water. She did a full somersault by accident, and when she came up again her dreadlocks were beyond soaked. They were saturated.

"Hey, check it out, Jack! My hair is _bloating_!"

The dreadlocks were practically sucking up water like so many hoses, and within moments Meg was too top-heavy to sit up straight.

Upside down she went, still stuck in the inner tube.

Jack stuck a straw into a juice box and reclined in his beach chair to watch the show.

Meg kicked her legs around for a few moments and, eventually, with much flailing, she drifted upright like a buoy for a breath of air. There was a little pink and blue moon jelly stuck on her head.

"You'll never _believe_ what's down there!" she screamed with a laugh a split second before she flipped upside down again. The whole process repeated, and when she came up again, she had a disturbingly large- football sized, let's say- crab lodge in her hair. It looked like the crab had eaten the jelly. The third time, there was a toothy fish clamed on, having apparently eaten the crab.

"If this keeps going," Jack muttered, "something's bound to eat _her_ eventually. Maybe a giant saltwater crocodile."

The fourth time Meg flipped upright, the fish was still there, but she staying above the surface long enough to attract the attention of an over-sized sea bird, which swooped in to grab the fish. The fish was stubborn though (it MAY have been an eel), and the bird ended up dragging Meg about thirty feet down the shore before ripping the fish/eel thing away and leaving Meg to massage a sort spot on her scalp.

"As entertaining as ever, Meg!" Jack called down to her. He had to cup one hand over his mouth just to get his voice to carry over the sound of the surf.

"Oh, shut _up_!" Meg snapped. She reached into her hair and yanked out another passenger. She ran towards Jack at Mach 2, dropped the crab in Jack's lap, and then disappeared.

"Whoa!" Jack cried out, jumping to his feet and dropping his juice box. The crab was about the size of a baseball, with one big claw and one regular sized one. "Do you realized how much damage that thing could have done?" Jack screamed after Meg as she skipped down the beach.

In the moments Jack spent yelling a few more things at Meg, the crab noticed Jack's fallen juice box. Whether by some ancient instinct or a recently evolved sense of humor, the crab snatched up the box and went scuttling, sideways, down the beach in the opposite direction as Meg.

"Hey! Come back here you uncooked side dish!"

If there's one thing you don't learn from growing up in central rural China, it's how to run on soft sand. Crabs can move alarmingly fast down a beach, whereas Jack Spicers are a little less nimble.

"Give me back my juice box ya little shit!"

Leaving Meg far behind, Jack ran down the beach after that crazy crab. He couldn't understand why he was so determined to catch the thing- the juice box wasn't exactly important. Maybe it had just been so long since he'd lost that he could not accept anything other than success.

But, at the same time, there was something drawing him along other than the crab and juice box. He had noticed when he and Meg first got to the beach a strange yearning to go sprinting up the sand until he reached the distant docks. It was like some strange instinct or premonition was drawing him on, pushing the aches and pains of running on sand to the back of his mind.

Eventually, the crab went sideways and ran under the tall wooden docks, exposed by the low tide. The sand was compact down there, so Jack caught the crab in a matter of seconds. He snatched up the juice box and, using more force than he intended to, kicked the crab not only into the ocean but sent it skipping a few times over the waves.

"So long, sucker," he muttered under his breath, pushing the straw up and down in the box a few times and turning to leave. Just as he turned, though, he dropped the juice box in disbelief.

Just around the bend of the beach, somewhat hidden in a remote bay, was a giant ship. Giant. It was easily the size of a cruise liner, but it barely looked like one.

"What the hell is that?" Jack whispered under his breath, squatting down to pick up his juice box. In all the time he had been running down the beach, he had never noticed the huge thing docked practically in front of him. It was like it had just appeared. "It looks like Howl's Moving Castle…only in the shape of an ocean liner."

Between his incredible new JackBots and boundless new technology, Jack Spicer wasn't easily impressed. But, there was something about that ship that seemed…unnatural.

Suddenly he noticed footsteps over head. The sun came through the docks in long slits, and Jack could see who stood where by the way the light was cut.

"Major! Where have you been?" a male voice asked. "I've been looking all over for you! I thought you said…"

"I said the high 7 dock," replied a deep, authoritative voice, apparently Major.

"Yeah, and I was here earlier…"

"Earlier? When it was the low 7 dock? I swear I explained this to you! At low tide, the docks are high, and visa versa!"

"Oh…I guess I was here at high tide…" the first voice said so quietly that Jack could barely hear him.

"Just forget it. You're here now, so what did you find on that lead?"

"Spicer?"

Jack was suddenly intrigued. What lead? Who were these men?

"Nothing," the first man continued. "There was just some red haired guy with either his spastic girl friend or his little sister. No sign of Spicer."

"Damn it," Major snapped. "How does this keep happening?" He turned and paced slowly down the dock, right over Jack's head. "The information we have should _logically_ lead us to that bastard, but…"

There was a long silence, during which Jack didn't dare move an inch on the rough, grinding sand. Then, eventually, the first man spoke up.

"Is it really necessary?" he asked tentatively. "I mean, do we have to _kill him_? Wouldn't we just lose control over all his robots and make things even worse?"

"Minor," Major said, turning around and walking back slowly, "there's nothing else to do _other_ than kill him. No one ever questioned killing Hitler! If Jack Spicer is allowed to live, there's no telling how bad things could get. Sure, life isn't too much different _now_, aside that we're minus a few national landmarks, but just wait a few more years. Once people are too accustomed to Spicer's rule, it will only be _that_ much more difficult to rebel! Not only do we have to wipe him out, we have to wipe out all his robots and everything he's created!"

"Uh…I still think this is going to lead to an uncontrolled international outbreak of free-for-all war, plague, and starvation," Minor muttered. "At least, if we can't find a way to control everyone after Spicer is gone…"

Suddenly there was a deep, rumbling vibration that seemed to come from Major. Jack saw the boards of the dock quiver as the sound shot into Minor and knocked him off his feet.

"Ow, Major! What was that for?"

"That was just to remind you that there's no room for doubt within the Circle of Fifths," Major snapped in his baritone, imposing voice. "If you want out, then _leave_! But, don't think Silence will just forget you…"

"I'm not leaving," Minor murmured, letting Major give him a hand up. "I…I trust Silence. He knows what he's doing."

"Damn straight he does. Now, come on. We still have to keep one step ahead of Spicer, and his satellite should be passing over this area soon."

With that, Major and Minor trotted down the dock and returned to land. Jack ducked behind the shadow of a dock post as they headed along the ledge of land towards the strange ship. Keeping his head low, and the juice box still in the corner of his mouth, Jack ran under the docks until the bay curved in and the docks came to an end. Kneeling next to a post, he had an almost head-on view of the ship and all its mismatched glory.

He then saw Major and Minor for the first time. Minor was tall and lean, with spiky blonde hair and the sort of expression that suggested he wasn't exactly present. Major was short and square, but built like a brick wall, with dark hair, dark features, and a no-nonsense look to him. Minor was wearing almost all blue and white while Major wore black and green.

Then, something strange happened. With Major in the lead, the two men stepped right off the edge of the land and _walked across open air._ Jack could see the atmosphere beneath them bending and shimmering like a heat illusion. Then, a split second after they stepped off solid ground, a perfect note resonated in the air and almost knocked Jack off his feet.

Not exactly a music expert, there was no way Jack could identify the note, but he had a feeling that there was something special about that one sound.

After a moment, the two men were aboard the strange ship and they vanished through a door. About a minute after that, a jet of steam shot out from a main smoke stack, but it was totally silent. Then, with smaller shots of steam erupting from random places about the ship, it slowly began to drift forward- without a sound. The waves even fell silent. The ship moved out of the bay at an amazing rate for something so massive. As it passed Jack, he read the name painted on the side in a way designed to imitate letters cut from different magazine pages.

"_Down An Octave_," he read to himself quietly.

In just a few moments, the ship was out into open water, and then it dove. In less than minute, the ship vanished under the ocean in total stealth, leaving only some white waves behind.

Then, Jack heard seagulls. He heard the ocean. He heard Meg screaming as she ran and jumped into a sand castle she had built while Jack was away. Jack then realized that, the whole time he had been listening in on Major and Minor, the rest of the world had fallen silent.

"Holy crap," Jack muttered as the realization suddenly set in. "They could have killed me. They _did_ find me, they just didn't knowit!" After a moment of cluttered thoughts, Jack took off running back down the beach, this time keeping to the wet, compact sand. He didn't mind getting his feet wet.

"Meg! We gotta get back! There are some freaky people trying to kill me!"

"Lots of people are trying to kill you, Jack," Meg said, piling up some sand, "but they all think they're going after that weird Big Brother guy you came up with."

Jack stopped. He took a deep breath. Meg piled sand around his feet.

"You're right," he said finally. "They don't know what I look like. They don't realize I'm a 23-year-old from China with bright red hair. I'm still safe…That gives me the upper hand. I have to find out who those people are before they find out who I am."

"A good start would be to _not_ describe yourself out loud," Meg said, arranging strips of seaweed over his sand-cased feet to look like sneaker laces.

The story continues in:

Jack Spicer Wants To Save The World


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